This System, Which We Shall Call The Cordillera Of California, Or Of New Albion, Is Linked Between Latitude 33 And

34 degrees with the Pimeria alta, and the western branch of the Cordilleras of Anahuac; and between latitude 45 and

53 degrees, with the Rocky Mountains, by transversal ridges and spurs that widen towards the east. Travellers who may at some future time pass over the unknown land between Cape Mendocino and the source of the Rio Colorado, may perhaps inform us whether the connexion of the maritime Alps of California or New Albion, with the western branch of the Cordilleras of Mexico, resembles that which, notwithstanding the depression, or rather total interruption observed on the west of the Rio Atrato, is admitted by geographers to exist between the mountains of the isthmus of Panama and the western branch of the Andes of New Grenada. The maritime Alps, in the peninsula of Old California, rise progressively towards the north in the Sierra of Santa Lucia (latitude 34 1/2 degrees), in the Sierra of San Marcos (latitude 37 to 38 degrees) and in the Snowy Mountains near Cape Mendocino (latitude 39 degrees 41 minutes); the last seem to attain at least the height of 1500 toises. From Cape Mendocino the chain follows the coast of the Pacific, but at the distance of from twenty to twenty-five leagues. Between the lofty summits of Mount Hood and Mount Saint Helen, in latitude 45 3/4 degrees, the chain is broken by the River Columbia. In New Hanover, New Cornwall and New Norfolk these rents of a rocky coast are repeated, these geologic phenomena of the fjords that characterize western Patagonia and Norway. At the point where the Cordillera turns towards the west (latitude 58 3/4 degrees, longitude 139 degrees 40 minutes) there are two volcanic peaks, one of which (Mount Saint Elias) perhaps equals Cotopaxi in height; the other (Fair-Weather Mountain) equals the height of Mount Rosa. The elevation of the former exceeds all the summits of the Cordilleras of Mexico and the Rocky Mountains, north of the parallel 19 1/4 degrees; it is even the culminant point in the northern hemisphere, of the whole known world north of 50 degrees of latitude. North-west of the peaks of Saint Elias and Fair-Weather the chain of California widens considerably in the interior of Russian America. Volcanoes multiply in number as we advance westward, in the peninsula of Alaska and the Fox Islands, where the volcano Ajagedan rises to the height of 1175 toises above the level of the sea. Thus the chain of the maritime Alps of California appears to be undermined by subterraneous fires at its two extremities; on the north in 60 degrees of latitude, and on the south, in 28 degrees, in the volcanoes of the Virgins.* (* Volcanes de las Virgenes. The highest summit of Old California, the Cerro de la Giganta (700 toises), appears to be also an extinguished volcano.) If it were certain that the mountains of California belong to the western branch of the Andes of Anahuac, it might be said that the volcanic fire, still burning, abandons the central Cordillera when it recedes from the coast, that is, from the volcano of Colima; and that the fire is borne on the north-west by the peninsula of Old California, Mount Saint Elias, and the peninsula of Alaska, towards the Aleutian Islands and Kamschatka.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 254 of 332
Words from 133118 to 133690 of 174507