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Show 56 STEPPES AND DESERTS. ()576 English feet), of the St. Gothard (6440 Frenoh, or 6865 English feet), and of the St. Bernard (7476 French, or 7969 English feet), yet the ascent is so gradual, as to offer no obstacle to the use of wheel carriages of all kinds in the communication between the basins of the Missouri and the Oregon; in other words, between the states on the Atlantic sea board opposite Europe, and the new settlements on the Oregon and Columbia opposite China. The itinerary distance from Boston to Astoria on the Pacific at the mouth of the Columbia, is, according to the difference of longitude, 2200 geographical miles, or about one-sixth less than the distance of Lisbon from the Ural near Katharinenburg. From the gentleness of the ascent of the high plateau which leads from the Missouri to California and to the basin of the Oregon-(from the River and Fort Laramie, on the northern branch of the Platte River, to Fort 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 Mississippi 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." (Fremont'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° 2-!', and the longitude 109° 24' W. from Greenwich. Adolph Erman bas 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 J,ena from those which flow towards the Pacific, if prolonged on the surface of the globe in t.he 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 |