Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 3 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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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.
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