26o 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XVI. No. 405 



SCIENCE: 



A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER OF ALL TBS ARTS AND SCIENCES. 



PUBLISHED BV 



N. D. C. HODGES, 



47 Lafayette Place, New York. 



SCBSORIPTIONS.— United States and Canada 83,60 a year. 



Great Britain and Europe 4.50 a year. 



Communications will be welcomed from any quarter. Abstracts of scientific 

 papers are solicited, and twenty copies of the issue containing such will be 

 mailed the author on request in advance. Rejected manuscripts will be 

 returned to the authors only when the requisite amount of postage accom- 

 panies the manuscript. "Whatever is intended for insertion must be authenti- 

 cated by the name aud address of the writer; not necessarily for publication, 

 but as a guaranty of good faith. We do not hold ourselves responsible for 

 any vieWor npi'm'oitR expressed in the communications of our correspondents. 



Attention is called to the " Wants ^' column. All are invited to use it in 

 soliciting information or seeking new positions. The name and address of 

 applicants should be given in full, so that answers will go direct to them. Tne 

 * ' Exchange ^^ column is likewise open. 



Vol. XVI. NEW YORK, November 7, 1890. No. 405. 



CONTENTS: 



Antarctic Exploration 253 



The Use of Oil . 258 



Notes and News 258 



The Culminating Point of the 

 North American Continent 



AngeJo Beilprin 260 

 Thinness versus Stoutness 261 



Letters to the Editor. 

 Sti"ucture of the Piesiosaurian 



Skull. S. W. Wdliston 262 



On the Characters and System- 

 atic Position of the Large Sea- 

 Lizards. Mosasauridte 



G. Baur 263 ' Among the Publishers 



Two New Species of Tortoises 



from the South. G. Baur 262 



Kemains of the Primitive Ele- 

 phant found in Grinnell, lo. 



Envin H. Barbour 263 

 Photo-Mechanical Work. J. W. 



Osborne: S. B. Eoehler 263 



Book-Reviews. 



An Easy Method for Beginners in 

 Latin 264 



264 



THE CULMINATINO POINT OF THE NORTH AMEEICAN 



CONTINENT.' 



Among the objects for which the expedition recently organized 

 under the auspices of the Academy of Natural Sciences o£ Phila- 

 delphia was despatched to Mexico was the determination of the 

 physical features of the giant volcanoes of the South, with special 

 reference to a study of the vertical distribution of animal and veg- 

 etable forms. While prosecuting our observations in this direction, 

 I took the opportunity, in company with one or more of my asso- 

 ciates, of scaling the four loftiest summits of the land; namely, 

 the peak of Orizaba, Popocatepetl, Ixtaccihuatl, and the Nevado 

 de Toluca. This gave me the advantage of making personal 

 comparisons betn'een the life that existed in ditferent regions of 

 " cloud-land," at the same time that it offered me the opportunity 

 of more closely investigating the geological features of some of 

 the most gigantic volcanic mountains known to us. Numerous 

 measurements of altitude were made during the ascents, and, in 

 the higher regions, always with the same instrument. This was 

 a registered aneroid, tested and corrected at Philadelphia (imme- 



' From the Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadel- 



diately before the starting, and shortly after the return of the 

 expedition) at the sea-level of Vera Cruz, and in the Central 

 Meteorological Observatory of the City of Mexico, at an elevation 

 of 7,403 feet. To the officers of the latter institution I am indebted 

 for the privilege of making comparisons with the standard mer- 

 curial column. 



The results of our measurements show a striking accord in some 

 instances with those obtained from earlier measurements, while 

 in other cases they exhibit marked divergence. The fact that all 

 the summits were ascended within a period of three weeks, were 

 measured with the same instrument, and during a period of 

 atmospheric equability and stability which is offered to an imusual 

 degree by a tropical dry season, renders the possibility of errors- 

 of any magnitude almost ml. At any rate, such errors as may 

 have crept in will probably not affect a general comparative re- 

 sult. The points of important difference are: (1) the highest sum- 

 mit of Mexico is not, as is commonly supposed, Popocatepetl, but 

 the peak of Oriziba (Citlaltepetl, the "Star Mountain"), which 

 rises 700 fept higher (18,300 feet); (3) Ixtaccihuatl, the familiar 

 " White Woman '" of the plain of Anahuac, is but a few hundred 

 feet (about 550) lower than Popocatepetl. 



The peak of Orizaba was ascended on the 6th and 7th of x\pril, 

 Popocatepetl on the 16th and 17Lh of the same month, the Nevado 

 de Toluca on the 21st, and Ixtaccihuatl on the 36th and 27th. 



The restoration of the peak of Orizaba to the first place among 

 Mexican mountains, and its increased altitude, open up the inter- 

 esting question as to what constitutes the culminating point of the 

 North American continent. T/ie only other mountain that need 

 be considered in this connection is St. Elias, situated approxi- 

 mately on the 141st meridian of west longitude, and whose sum- 

 mit is claimed for both the possessions of Great Britain and the 

 United States (.Alaska). The measurements of this mountain de- 

 part so widely from one another, however, that we are not yet in 

 a position to affirm, even within limits of a thousand feet or con- 

 siderahly Qiore, how nearly it approaches in height the Mexican 

 volcanoes. We are probaldy justified in dismissing without fur- 

 ther examination the measurement made by La Perouse in 1786, 

 which gave for the peak less than 13,000 feet; and seemingly not 

 much more reliable is the datura (14,970 feet) which appears in 

 Capt. Denbam's chart from 1853 to 1856, and is copied into the 

 British Admiralty chart of 1872 (Humboldt's Cosmos, v. p. 419, 

 Otte's edition; "Dall, Report of the United States Coast and Geo- 

 detic Survey for 1875, p. 159). This latter figure ^4,553 metres) is 

 adopted by Petermann in his general map of North America pre- 

 pared for Stieler's "Hand-Atlas" (1878-81). Malespina in 1791 

 determined the height, hy means of angles taken from near the 

 position of Port Mulgrave, to be 5,441 metres, or 17,851 feet; and 

 the equivalent of this figure has been copied into the Russian 

 hydrograpliic charts (1847). Tebenkotf reduces this amount by 

 somewhat over 900 feet. 



No carefully conducted measurements of the mountain appear 

 to have been made between tlie date of the publication of Teben- 

 koff's chart (1^49) and 1874, when Mr. Dall, under the diiection 

 of the United States Coast Survey, surveyed a considerable portion 

 of the Alaskan region.' This investigator found four different 

 values for the height of the mountain as measured from four 

 points respectively 69, 127, 132, and 167 miles distant: these are 

 19,464, 18,350, 19,956, and 18,033 feet. Mr. Dall dismisses all of 

 these as having little value, except the measurement of 19,464 

 feet, made from Port Mulgrave. It is difficult to reconcile the 



1 Mr. Dall, in his report above referred to (p. 159), quotes from Leopold von- 

 Buch an additional measurement of the mountain, namely, 16,758 feet^ 

 GrewiDs-k (Verhandl Russ.-Kaiser. Mineralrg. Gesellsoh., 1848-49 (1850J, p. 99> 

 gives the same figure, referring likewise \o Buch (Cauar. Inselu, p. o90); and a 

 further reference appears in Davidaon's Coast Pilot of Alaska, 1869, p. 142, note- 

 (16,754 feet, EccurdiDg to Grewingk). But this figure is manifestly Malesplna'a 

 measurement given in French feet, which resolved is equal to 17,860 feet; and 

 Grewingk hlnnelf quotes Malesplna's mea?uremem (5,441 metres) on p. 404 of 

 his report. Humboldt {op. cit. v. p. 252) credits the measurement of 17,8.55 feet 

 to Quadra and GaleaLO; but, as tliese observers were associated with Male- 

 spina, it Is more than probable that the data here given are t aose which have 

 been generally attributed lo iVTalespina. Humholdt intimates that the 

 measurement is perhaps one-fllteenth too great; but whether this asfertlon. 

 rests ou certain facts containel In Malesplna's manuscripts, which the great 

 German traveller found among the Archives of Mexico (p. 419), or not, is not. 

 slated. 



