tain chains. Here the chain of the Great Smoky mountains which extends from the deep cut of the French Broad at Paint Rock, to that, not less remarkable, of the Little Tennessee, is the master chain of that region and of the whole Alleghany system. Though its highest summits are a few feet below the highest peaks of the Black Mountain, it presents on that extent of 65 miles a continuous series of high peaks, and an average elevation not to be found in any other district, and which give to it a greater importance in the geographical structure of that vast system of mountains. The gaps or depressions never fall below 5000 feet except towards the southwest and beyond Forney Ridge, and the number of peaks, the altitude of which exceeds 6000 feet, is indeed very large. On the opposite side, to the southeast, the Blue Ridge also rises again to a considerable height, in the stately mountains of the Great Hogback and Whiteside, which nearly reach 5000 feet, and keeps on in a series of peaks scarcely less elevated far beyond the boundary of Georgia.

Moreover the interior, between the Smoky mountains and the Blue Ridge, is filled with chains which offer peaks higher still than the latter. The compact and intricated cluster of high mountains, which form the almost unknown wilderness covering the southern portion of Haywood and Jackson counties, is remarkable by its massiveness and the number of lofty peaks which are crowded within a comparatively narrow space. The Cold mountain chain, which constitutes one of its main axes, shows a long series of broad tops, nearly all of which exceed 6000 feet. Near the south end, but west of it, not far from the head waters of the French Broad, the Pigeon and the Tuckaseegee waters, Mount Hardy raises its dark and broad head to the height of 6133. Still further, to the northwest, the group culminates in the Richland Balsam, 6425 feet, which divides the waters of the two main branches of Pigeon river and of the Caney fork of the Tuckaseegee. Amos Plott's Balsam, in the midst of the great Balsam chain, which runs in a parallel direction between the two main chains, measures 6278 feet. Considering therefore these great features of physical structure and the considerable elevation of the valleys which form the base of these high chains, we may say that this vast cluster of highlands between the French Broad and the Tuckaseegee rivers, is the culminating region of the great Appalachian system.

NEW MAP OF THE ALLEGHANY SYSTEM, BY MR. E. SANDOZ.-The measurements of Professor Guyot, just referred to, furnish important data for the correction as well as the completion of all existing maps of the regions which he has examined. These data, with the exception of those collected in the past summer, have been employed by Mr. Ernest Sandoz, a nephew of Prof. Guyot, and an accomplished draftsman, in the construc

tion of a new map of the entire Alleghany chain, which has been published in the July number of Petermann's Mittheilungen. Mr. Sandoz had accompanied Mr. Guyot on many of his mountain expeditions and took the results with him to Gotha, where the chart was drawn and engraved under the direction of Dr. Petermann. To the editor of that excellent repository of geographical science, we are indebted for an early and proof impression of this map. As it is by far the most satisfactory chart of the Eastern portion of the United States in existence, a request has been sent to Dr. Petermann to permit its republication in connection with this Journal, and there is reason to hope that at no distant day it may be laid before our readers, with a paper illustrative and explanatory of it, from the pen of Professor Guyot. The new edition when issued will contain some emendations derived from the more recent surveys to which allusion has been made. The scale of the map is Ï: 6,000,000. Two detailed subordinate maps are printed on the same sheet with it, having a scale of 1: 600,000, one of which gives the White Mts. of New Hampshire, the other the Black Mts. of North Carolina, both according to Mr. Guyot's measurements.

NARRATIVE OF A VOYAGE TO SPITZBERGEN IN THE YEAR 1613. In the Transactions of the American Antiquarian Society, vol. iv. just published, S. F. Haven, Esq., the Society's Librarian, has edited with an introduction and notes, a Narrative of a Voyage to Spitzbergen made in the year 1613 at the charge of the English "Muscovey Company." Although this voyage is one of the series embraced in the celebrated collection of Purchas, commonly known as "His Pilgrimes," yet this account, which has been lying among the Manuscripts of the Antiquarian Society, has never before been printed. There is reason for believing, says Mr. Haven, that the Journal now first printed was from the pen of Robert Fotherby, whose name both as an author and as a skillful navigator is connected with two succeeding voyages.

"The expedition of 1613," he continues, "was fitted out with unusual care, and intrusted to the charge of some of the ablest men in the service. Besides the chief Captain, Benjamin Joseph, William Baffin and the author of our narrative, it was accompanied by Thos. Edge, who had already twice sailed to Spitzbergen. Purchas was indebted to Edge for the map of the coast inserted in his work, and also for a summary of Northern Discoveries which appears in the same volume. Baffin was attached to the ship of the commander of the fleet; and from that circumstance, apart from his personal reputation and the value of his scientific observations, his journal would naturally be the one selected for publication. The author of our account was in another vessel

AM. JOUR. SCI.-SECOND SERIES, VOL. XXX, No. 90.-NOV., 1860.

often separated from the rest. He thus experienced a different series of incidents or observed the same from a different point of view."

At this period when Arctic explorations are attracting so much attention, the printing of this early record is peculiarly acceptable. The introduction and notes, with which the paper has been enriched by the pen of its learned editor, illustrate many interesting points pertaining to polar discoveries. The cuts which accompany this edition are fac-similes (except in their size which is half that of the originals) from some rude drawings which are attached to the Manuscript.

DR. ENGELMANN'S MEASUREMENT OF THE ELEVATION OF ST. LOUIS, ABOVE THE GULF OF MEXICO.-In the Transactions of the Academy of Science in St. Louis, vol. i, No. 4, 1860, there is an article by Dr. Geo. Engelmann on the elevation of St. Louis above the Gulf of Mexico, from which the following statements are derived.

"A knowledge of the exact altitude of St. Louis is important as an element in the physical geography of North America, not only for the reason that this city stands, so to say, in the centre of the great Mississippi Valley and not far from the confluence of the four great rivers, the Mississippi, the Missouri, the Illinois and the Ohio, but, also, because most of the hypsometrical measurements throughout the northern and western regions of this valley and into New Mexico and Utah, made by the different explorers during the last twenty years and more, by Nicollet, Fremont, Owen, Wislizenus, Emory, Stansbury, and several of the Pacific Railroad exploring expeditions, took the altitude of St. Louis as their starting point, and were based to a great extent on the barometrical observations of those explorers compared with mine.

66 'Mr. J. N. Nicollet was the first who ascertained the elevation of St. Louis as well as a great many points on the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, as he was the first to give us a physical geography of the Mississippi Valley, based on careful instrumental observation. He laid down an abstract of his labors in his Report on the Hydrographical Basin of the Upper Mississippi, in 1841, published by order of the U. S. Senate, after his death, in 1843. On pages 93-101 he gives a detailed account of the methods employed to obtain the desired results, and on pp. 122-125 is contained a most valuable table of geographical positions, distances, and altitudes.”

In this table, the altitude of St. Louis is stated to be 382 feet from which two feet must be deducted to reduce it to low watermark.

Dr. A. Wislizenus next calculated the elevation of St. Louis. His results are published in his Report on a Tour to Northern

Mexico, printed by the U. S. Senate in 1848. They place the altitude of the present low water-mark at 389 feet 6 inches.

Dr. Engelmann's recent calculations and measurements give the height of the low water-mark at St. Louis at 374 feet 4 inches, a few feet lower than either of his predecessors had estimated it.

The following table shows their comparative results for three different points measured.

Height of St. Louis above the Gulf, in English feet.

Engelmann.

"Intimately connected with the altitude of St. Louis and other points along our river is the question of the fall of the river and the velocity of its current. Nicollet's tables, mentioned above, give us the only data at present available for an approximative estimation of the fall of the Mississippi in its different sections. The following little table, calculated from these data, explains itself:

"The Mississippi River has therefore an average fall of about 4 inches per mile; between St. Peter's and the Rapids, a little more; from the lower end of the Rapids to New Orleans, a little less; in the region of the Rapids, about 7 inches; and from New Orleans to the mouth, about 1 inch per mile. A further analysis of the tables shows the fall on both rapids to be 21 inches to the mile."

Dr. Engelmann then gives the following data, based, as he says, on his own "rather loose observations" respecting the velocity of the Mississippi. As he remarks on "the absence of all other information " on this point it seems proper for us to refer to Marr's Report of Observations at Memphis in 1849, and to Dr. Ellet's work, to the measurements of Riddell, Forshey, and Dickenson reported to the American Association, and to an article by Lyell in this Journal, [2], iii, pp. 36 and 118.

Ap. 26,

20

5.00

12

21

5.09

114

27

5.55

แ

102

27

1839. May 27, 1837. July 10, 1844. May 19, (( Jun. 22, KIEPERT'S NEUER HAND ATLAS, (Berlin, Reimer: N.Y., ermann, 1860.)-This admirable work which has been for some years in progress is at last complete, presenting a collection of forty maps of different portions of the world. They are drawn with great beauty and skill and the whole work is at once attractive, convenient and trustworthy, as might indeed be expected from the reputation which the author enjoys as a cartographer. Our limits do not admit of an extended criticism on the several maps, but we append a list for the information of those who may wish to purchase a complete general Atlas for every day use.