| Nevado of Sorata, or Ancohuma. | South Latitude. | Longitude. | Height. |
|---|---|---|---|
| South Peak | 15° 51′ 33″ | 68° 33′ 55″ | 21,286 |
| North Peak | 15° 49′ 18″ | 68° 33′ 52″ | 21,043 |
| Illimani. | |||
| South Peak | 16° 38′ 52″ | 67° 49′ 18″ | 21,145 |
| Middle Peak | 16° 38′ 26″ | 67° 49′ 17″ | 21,094 |
| North Peak | 16° 37′ 50″ | 67° 49′ 39″ | 21,060 |
The numbers representing the heights are, with the exception of the unimportant difference of a few feet in the South Peak of Illimani, the same as those in the map of the Lake of Titicaca. A sketch of the Illimani, as it appears in all its majesty from La Paz, was given at an earlier date by Mr. Pentland in the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society.[[IO]] But this was five years after the publication of the first measurements in the Annuaire du Bureau des Longitudes for 1830, p. 323, which results I myself hastened to disseminate in Germany.[[IP]] The Nevado de Sorata lies to the east of the village of Sorata or Esquibel, and is called in the Ymarra language, according to Pentland, Ancomani, Itampu, and Illhampu. In Illimani we recognize the Ymarra word illi, snow.
If, however, in the eastern chain of Bolivia the Sorata was long assumed to be 3962 feet, and the Illimani 2851 feet too high, there are in the western chain of Bolivia, according to Pentland’s map of Titicaca (1848), four peaks east of Arica between the latitudes 18° 7′ and 18° 25′, all of which exceed Chimborazo in height, which itself is 21,422 feet.
These four peaks are:—
| English feet. | French feet. | |
|---|---|---|
| Pomarape | 21,700 | 20,360 |
| Gualateiri | 21,960 | 20,604 |
| Parinacota | 22,030 | 20,670 |
| Sahama | 22,350 | 20,971 |
Berghaus has applied to the chains of the Andes in Bolivia, the investigation which I published[[IQ]] regarding the proportion, which varies extremely in different mountain-chains, of the mountain ridge (the mean height of the passes), to the highest summits (or the culminating points). He finds,[[IR]] according to Pentland’s map, that the mean height of the passes in the eastern chain is 13,505, and in the western chain 14,496 feet. The culminating points are 21,285 and 22,350 feet; consequently the ratio of the height of the ridge to that of the highest summit is, in the eastern chain, as 1 : 1·57, and in the western chain as 1 : 1·54. This ratio, which is, as it were, the measure of the subterranean upheaving force, is very similar to that in the Pyrenees, but very different from the plastic form of the Alps, the mean height of whose passes is far less in comparison with the height of Mont Blanc. In the Pyrenees these ratios are as 1 : 1·43, and in the Alps as 1 : 2·09.
But, according to Fitzroy and Darwin, the height of the Sahama is still surpassed by 848 feet by that of the volcano Aconcagua (south lat. 32° 39′), in the north-east of Valparaiso in Chili. The officers of the expedition of the Adventure and Beagle found, in August 1835, that the Aconcagua was between 23,000 and 23,400 feet in height. If we reckon it at 23,200 feet it is 1776 feet, higher than Chimborazo.[[IS]] According to more recent calculations,[[IT]] Aconcagua is determined to be 23,906 feet.
Our knowledge regarding the systems of mountains, which, north of the parallels of 30° and 31°, are distinguished as the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada of California, has been vastly augmented during the last few years in the astronomico-geographical, hypsometric, geognostic, and botanical departments, by the excellent works of Charles Frémont,[[IU]] of Dr. Wislizenus,[[IV]] and of Lieutenants Abert and Peck.[[IW]] There prevails throughout these North American works a scientific spirit deserving of the warmest acknowledgment. The remarkable plateau, referred to in p. 34, between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada of California, which rises uninterruptedly from 4000 to 5000 French (4260 to 5330 English) feet high, and is termed the Great Basin, presents an interior closed river-system, thermal springs, and salt lakes. None of its rivers, Bear River, Carson River, and Humboldt River, find a passage to the sea. That which, by a process of induction and combination, I represented in my great map of Mexico, executed in 1804, as the Lake of Timpanogos, is the Great Salt Lake of Frémont’s map. It is 60 miles long from north to south, and 40 miles broad, and it communicates with the fresh-water Lake of Utah, which lies at a higher level, and into which the Timpanogos or Timpanaozu River enters from the eastward, in lat. 40° 13′. The fact of the Lake of Timpanogos not having been placed in my map sufficiently to the north and west, arose from the entire absence, at that period, of all astronomical determinations of position of Santa Fé in New Mexico. For the western margin of the lake the error amounts to almost fifty minutes, a difference of absolute longitude which will appear less striking when it is remembered that my itinerary map of Guanaxuato could only be based for an extent of 15° of latitude on determinations made by the compass (magnetic surveys), instituted by Don Pedro de Rivera.[[IX]] These determinations gave my talented and prematurely lost fellow-labourer, Herr Friesen, 105° 36′ as the longitude of Santa Fé, while, by other combinations, I calculated it at 104° 51′. According to actual astronomical determinations the true longitude appears to be 106°. The relative position of the strata of rock salt found in thick strata of red clay, south-east of the Great Salt Lake (Laguna de Timpanogos), with its many islands, and near the present Fort Mormon and the Utah Lake, is accurately given in my large map of Mexico. I may refer to the most recent evidence of the traveller who made the first trustworthy determinations of position in this region. “The mineral or rock salt, of which a specimen is placed in Congress Library, was found in the place marked by Humboldt in his map of New Spain (northern half), as derived from the journal of the Missionary Father Escalante, who attempted (1777) to penetrate the unknown country from Santa Fé of New Mexico to Monterey of the Pacific Ocean. South-east of the Lake Timpanogos is the chain of the Wha-satch Mountains; and in this, at the place where Humboldt has written Montagnes de sel gemme, this mineral is found.”[[IY]]
A great historical interest is attached to this part of the highland, especially to the neighbourhood of the Lake of Timpanogos, which is probably identical with the Lake of Teguayo, the ancestral seat of the Aztecs. This people, in their migration from Aztlan to Tula, and to the valley of Tenochtitlan in Mexico, made three stations at which the ruins of Casas grandes are still to be seen. The first halting-place of the Aztecs was at the Lake of Teguayo, south of Quivira, the second on the Rio Gila, and the third not far from the Presidio de Llanos. Lieutenant Abert found on the banks of the Rio Gila the same immense quantity of elegantly painted fragments of delf and pottery scattered over a large surface of country, which, at the same place, had excited so much astonishment in the missionaries Francisco Garces and Pedro Fonte. From these products of the hand of man, it may be inferred that there was a time when a higher human civilization existed in this now desolate region. Repetitions of the singular architectural style of the Aztecs, and of their houses of seven stories, are at the present time to be found far to the east of the Rio Grande del Norte; as, for instance, at Taos.[[IZ]] The Sierra Nevada of California is parallel to the coast of the Pacific; but between the latitudes of 34° and 41°, between San Buenaventura and the Bay of Trinidad, there runs, west of the Sierra Nevada, a small coast chain whose culminating point, Monte del Diablo, is 3674 feet high. In the narrow valley, between this coast chain and the great Sierra Nevada, flow from the south the Rio de San Joaquin, and from the north the Rio del Sacramento. It is in the alluvial soil on the banks of the latter river that the rich goldwashings occur, which are now proceeding with so much activity.
Besides the hypsometric levelling and the barometric measurements to which I have already referred (see page 33), between the mouth of the Kanzas River in the Missouri and the coast of the Pacific, throughout the immense expanse of 28° of longitude, Dr. Wislizenus has successfully prosecuted the levelling commenced by myself in the equinoctial zone of Mexico, to the north as far as to lat. 35° 38′, and consequently to Santa Fé del Nuevo Mexico. We learn with astonishment that the plateau which forms the broad crest of the Mexican Andes by no means sinks down to an inconsiderable height, as was long supposed to be the case. I give here, for the first time, according to recent measurements, the line of levelling from the city of Mexico to Santa Fé, which is within 16 miles from the Rio del Norte.