near or remote, and that there is an
imperfect analogy between the one case and the other.

Before we affirm any thing, as of our own knowledge and competence,
respecting heavenly bodies which are said to be millions of millions
of miles removed from us, it would not perhaps be amiss that we should
possess ourselves of a certain degree of incontestible information, as
to the things which exist on the earth we inhabit. Among these, one of
the subjects attended with a great degree of doubt and obscurity, is the
height of the mountains with which the surface of the globe we inhabit
is diversified. It is affirmed in the received books of elementary
geography, that the Andes are the highest mountains in the world. Morse,
in his American Gazetteer, third edition, printed at Boston in 1810(46),
says, "The height of Chimborazzo, the most elevated point of the vast
chain of the Andes, is 20,280 feet above the level of the sea, which
is 7102 feet higher than any other mountain in the known world:" thus
making the elevation of the mountains of Thibet, or whatever other
rising ground the compiler had in his thought, precisely 13,178 feet
above the level of the sea, and no more. This decision however has
lately been contradicted. Mr. Hugh Murray, in an Account of Discoveries
and Travels in Asia, published in 1820, has collated the reports of
various recent travellers in central Asia; and he states the height
of Chumularee, which he speaks of as the most elevated point of the
mountains of Thibet, as nearly 30,000 feet above the level of the sea.

(46) Article, Andes.

The elevation of mountains, till lately, was in no way attempted to
be ascertained but by the use of the quadrant, and their height was
so generally exaggerated, that Riccioli, one of the most eminent
astronomers of the seventeenth century, gives it as his opinion that
mountains, like the Caucasus, may have a perpendicular elevation of
fifty Italian miles(47). Later observers have undertaken to correct the
inaccuracy of these results through the application of the barometer,
and thus, by informing themselves of the weight of the air at a certain
elevation, proceeding to infer the height of the situation.

(47) Rees, Encyclopedia; article, Mountains.

There are many circumstances, which are calculated to induce a
circumspect enquirer to regard the affirmative positions of astronomy,
as they are delivered by the most approved modern writers, with
consid