FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107  
108   109   110   111   112   >>  
s bitterly cold, yet my fingers, though numb, were usable when I reached the top; it was in exposing them to manipulate the hypsometrical instruments that they lost all feeling and came nigh freezing. And breathlessness was naturally at its worst; I remember that even the exertion of rising from the prone position it was necessary to assume to read the barometer brought on a fit of panting. [Sidenote: Calculations for Altitude] With these circumstances in mind we will resume the discussion of the readings taken on the summit and their bearing upon the altitude of the mountain. It seems right to disregard the temperature recorded for the attached thermometer, and to use the air temperature, of which there is no doubt, in correcting the barometric reading. So they stand: Bar. Temp. 13.617 inches 7 deg. F. The boiling-point thermometer stood at 174.9 deg. F. when the steam was pouring out of the vent. They stand therefore: _Gibbon_ (334 feet altitude) _The Summit of Denali_ Bar. Ther. Bar. Ther. 29.590 76.5 deg. F. 13.617 7 deg. F. Now, the tables accessible to the writer do not work out their calculations beyond eighteen thousand feet, and he confesses himself too long unused to mathematical labors of any kind for the task of extending them. He was, therefore, constrained to fall back upon the kindness of Mr. Alfred Brooks, the head of the Alaskan Division of the United States Geological Survey, and Mr. Brooks turned over the data to Mr. C. E. Giffin, topographic engineer of that service, to which gentleman thankful acknowledgment is made for the result that follows. [Sidenote: Fort Gibbon and Valdez as Bases] Ignoring a calculation based upon a temperature of 20 deg. F. on the summit, and another based upon a temperature of 13.5 deg. F. on the summit (the mean of the air temperature and that recorded for the attached thermometer) and confining attention to the calculation which takes the air temperature of 7 deg. F. as the proper figure for the correction of the barometer, a result is reached which shows the summit of Denali as twenty-one thousand and eight feet above the sea. It should be added that Mr. Giffin obtained from the United States Weather Bureau the barometric and thermometric readings taken at Valdez on 7th June about the same length of time after our reading on the summit as the reading at Gibbon was before o
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107  
108   109   110   111   112   >>  



Top keywords:

temperature

 

summit

 

Gibbon

 
reading
 
thermometer
 

States

 
barometer
 

attached

 

calculation

 

altitude


recorded
 

readings

 

United

 

barometric

 

result

 
Valdez
 

Sidenote

 

Giffin

 

Brooks

 
Denali

reached

 
thousand
 

Geological

 

unused

 

Alfred

 

Survey

 

confesses

 
mathematical
 

eighteen

 

Division


Alaskan

 

extending

 

constrained

 

labors

 

kindness

 

service

 

obtained

 

Weather

 

twenty

 

Bureau


thermometric

 

length

 

correction

 

figure

 

gentleman

 

thankful

 
acknowledgment
 

engineer

 

topographic

 

confining