HEIGHT OF SEMIRU. 73 



which some logs were blazing. We found fogs and 

 mist whirling about the slopes of the mountain 

 below us, and had scarcely got housed before it 

 began to rain heavily, and continued till between 

 four and five o'clock. We found here M. Zollinger, 

 a Swiss botanist, who had been travelling for two 

 years in the mountains of Java, from one end of the 

 island to the other. He was collecting for a Society 

 in Geneva, and also for one in Batavia, and seemed 

 to know the country well. He had ascended Semiru, 

 being one of four persons who have accomplished 

 that feat. It took him two days of great labour, 

 the loose ashes of the upper cone being especially 

 fatiguing. By boiling water on the summit he 

 made it full 12,000 feet in height. P. Melvill von 

 Carnbee, a Lieutenant in the Dutch Navy, had 

 made it 12,292 English feet by trigonometrical 

 measurement, according to the Batavia Almanack.* 

 M, Zollinger informed us that on the higher 

 mountains of Java, there were few days throughout 

 the year in which no rain falls ; that the whole of 

 the forenoon is almost invariably clear lovely wea- 

 ther, but in the afternoon there is commonly a 



* See " Almanak voor Nederlandsch Indie, voor het Jaar, 

 1845. Batavia." A highly creditable production for a colony, 

 in which are many interesting and important articles, and among 

 others, lists of the heights above the sea of all the hills and prin- 

 cipal places, together with their geographical position, and the 

 area of the different islands and possessions of the Dutch in the 

 East Indies. 



