xxvi Report of the Miner alogical Survey [No. 126*. 



Popocatepetl, 17,716 or 17,734 



Chillatepetl, 17,371 



Illinissa, 17,238 



From this list it would appear, that there is but one summit elevated 

 more than 20,000 feet, and only five which exceed 18,000. 



40. Of the fifty-one measured peaks of which we have given a table, 

 there are twenty-eight as high, or higher than Chimborazo, and there 

 are forty-four as high, or higher than Desea Cassada, the second summit 

 of America. Popocatepetl, the sixth in order, is overtopped by not less 

 than 100 summits within the limited tract we are considering ; many of 

 the passes even (which are the lowest points) in the Indo-Gangetic range, 

 (which as I have before stated is not the highest ground,) exceed 

 in elevation the sixth summit of America. These facts may perhaps give 

 a more correct idea of the great difference which exists between these 

 two tracts, the loftiest on the globe, and the most remarkable in every 

 point of view. If the rivers of America (and even this is doubtful) 

 exceed in volume and length those of the Old World, at least the 

 mountains must yield.* 



41. The great elevation of these peaks is scarcely more striking than 

 is the depth of the vallies or hollows which separate them, and which 

 are always the beds of the rivers. Thus the Poorkyool Peak towers to a 

 height of 22,700 feet, while its base is washed at a horizontal distance 

 of five miles by the waters of the Sutlej ; the bed of which river has here 

 only an elevation of 9,500 feet. The difference is 13,200 feet in five 

 miles. In like manner the difference of elevation from the summit of 

 the Kuldung Peak to the Sutlej, in a distance of five and half miles, is 

 14,711 feet. Of the Soommeeroo Peak to the Mundaknee, distant four 

 miles, 1 1,000 ; of a peak (No. 17, Captain Webb's list) to the Gurjeia, dis- 

 tant two miles, 12,370 ; of the Jowahir Peak to the Goree, distant eleven 

 miles, 15,749. These vallies are far beyond any thing that is to be seen 

 in the Andes. 25 



25 Although the Andes have no river vallies comparable in depth with these, yet 

 there are some chasms, as they should rather be called, which taking together their 



* Our author was, it will be remembered, writing before Mr. Pentland's mea- 

 surements of Sorato 25,400, Illimani 24,350, and Descabezado 21,100 feet.— H. P. 



