PEAKS OF OTTER. 213 
say tliat lie measured the height himself; on the 
contrary** he acknowledges that the height of 
the mountains in America has never yet been as¬ 
certained with any degree of exactness; it is only 
from certain data, from which he says atolerable 
conjecture may be formed, that he supposes 
this to be the height of the loftiest peak. Po¬ 
sitively to assert that this peak is not so high, 
without having measured it in any manner, 
would be absurd; as I did not measure it, I do 
not therefore pretend to contradict Mr. Jeffer¬ 
son ; I have only to say, that the most elevated 
of the peaks of Otter appeared to me but a very 
insignficant mountain in comparison with 
Snowden, in Wales; and every person that 1 
conversed with that had seen both, and I con¬ 
versed with many, made the same remark. 
Now the highest peak of Snowden, is found, by 
triangular admeasurement, to be no more than 
three thousand live hundred and sixty-eight 
feet high, reckoning from the quay at Carnar¬ 
von. None of the other mountains in the Blue 
Ridge are supposed, from the same data, to he 
more than two thousand feet in perpendicular 
height. 
Beyond the Blue Ridge, after crossing by 
this route near the Peaks of Otter, I met w ith 
but very few settlements till I drew near to 
Fincastle, in Bottetourt County. This town 
stands about twenty miles distant from the 
