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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In Europe, On The
Contrary, Even Considering The Alps And The Pyrenees As One Sole Line
Of Elevation, We Still
Find summits far from this line or principal
ridge, in the Sierra Nevada of Grenada, Sicily, Greece, the Apennines,
perhaps
Also in Portugal, from 1500 to 1800 toises high.* (* Culminant
points; Malhacen of Grenada, 1826 toises; Etna, according to Captain
William Henry Smith, 1700 toises; Monte Corno of the Apennines, 1489
toises. If Mount Tomoros in Greece and the Serra Gaviarra of Portugal
enter, as is alleged, into the limit of perpetual snow, those summits,
according to their position in latitude, should attain from 1400 to
1600 toises. Yet on the loftiest mountains of Greece, Tomoros, Olympus
in Thessaly, Polyanos in Dolope and Mount Parnassus, M. Pouqueville
saw, in the month of August, snow lying only in patches, and in
cavities sheltered from the rays of the sun.) The contrast between
America and Europe, with respect to distribution of the culminant
points, which attain from 1300 to 1500 toises, is the more striking,
as the low eastern mountains of South America, of which the maximum of
elevation is only from 1300 to 1400 toises, are situated beside a
Cordillera of which the mean height exceeds 1800 toises, while the
secondary system of the mountains of Europe rises to maxima of
elevation of 1500 to 1800 toises, near a principal chain of at least
1200 toises of average height.
MAXIMA OF THE LINE OF ELEVATION IN THE SAME PARALLELS.
Andes of Chile, Upper Peru.
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