324 
COAST VOLCA^'OES. 
find spurs that "widen to"wards the east. Travellers "who 
may at some future time pass over the unknown land 
between Cape Mendocino and the source of the Eio Colo- 
rado, may perhaps inform us whether the connexion of tlie 
maritime Alps of California or New Albion, with the 
"Western branch of the Cordilleras of Mexico, resembles 
that, which, notwitli.standing the depression, or rather total 
interruption observed on tho west of the Eio Atrato, is ad- 
mitted by geographers to exist between the mountains of 
the isthmus of Panama and the western branch of tlie 
Andes ot New Grenada. The maritime Alps, in thepeniii- 
sula of Old California, rise progressively towards the north 
in the Sierra ot Santa Lucia (lat.34i°),'iu the Sierra of San 
Marcos (hit. 37° — 38°), and in the Snowy jMountains near 
Cape Mendocino (lat. 39° 41°); the last seem to attain at 
least the height of 1500 toises. Prom Cape Mendocino, 
the chain toUows the coast of the Pacific, but at the 
distance of from twenty to twenty-five leagues. Between 
the lofty summits ot Mount Hood and Mount Saint Helen, 
t' at' chain is broken by the Eiver Columbia. 
In New Hanover, New Cornwall, and New Norfolk, these 
rents ot a rocky coast aro repeated, these geologic pheno- 
mena ot the fjords that characterize western Patagonia and 
Norway. At the point wdiere the Cordillera turns towards 
the west (lat 58f long. 139" 40') there are two volcanic 
peaks, one of w Inch (Mount Saint Elias) perhaps eciuals- 
Cotopaxi in height; the other (Fair-Weather Mountain) 
equals tho height of Mount Eosa. The elevation of the 
former exceeds all the summits of the Cordilleras of Mexico 
and the Eocky Mountains, north of the parallel 19i° ; it is 
even the culminant point in the northern hemisphere, of the 
the whole known world north of 50° degrees of latitude. 
North-west oi the peaks of Saint Elias and Fair-Weather 
the chain ot California widens considerably in the interior 
ot Itiissian America, \olcanoes multiply in number as 
we advance westward, in the peninsula of Alaska and the 
J-slaiids, where the volcano Ajagedan rises to the heio-ht 
of Xl/5 toises above the level of the sea. Thus the chain 
.j maritime Alps of California appears to be under- 
mined by subten-aneous fires at its two extremities ; on 
the north in 60' of latitude, and on the south, in 28°, in the 
