Hall on the Lewis Fork of the Columbia, all the camping places of which the height was measured were from upwards of five to seven thousand, and at Old Park even 9760 French, or 10,403 English feet);--it has not been easy to determine the situation of the culminating point, or “divortia aquarum.” It is south of the Wind River mountains, nearly midway between the Mississipi and the coast of the Pacific, at an elevation of 7027 French, or 7490 English feet; therefore only 450 French, or 480 English, feet lower than the Pass of the great St. Bernard. The immigrants call this point “the South Pass.” (Frémont’s Report, pp. 3, 60, 70, 100, 129). It is situated in a pleasant district, in which the mica slate and gneiss rock are found covered with many species of Artemisia, particularly Artemisia tridentata (Nuttall), asters, and cactuses. Astronomical determinations give the latitude 42° 24′, and the longitude 109° 24′ W. from Greenwich. Adolph Erman has already called attention to the circumstance that the direction of the great chain of the Aldan mountains in the east of Asia, which divides the streams flowing into the Lena from those which flow towards the Pacific, if prolonged on the surface of the globe in the direction of a great circle, passes through several summits of the Rocky Mountains, between the parallels of 40° and 55°. “Thus an American and an Asiatic chain of mountains appear to belong to one great fissure, following the direction of a great circle, or the shortest course from point to point.” (Compare Erman’s Reise um die Erde, Abth. I. Bd. iii. S. 8, Abth. II. Bd. i. S. 386, with his Archiv für wissenschaftliche Kunde von Russland, Bd. vi. S. 671).