Height
The Matterhorn has two distinct summits, both situated on a 100-metre-long rocky ridge: the Swiss summit with a height of 4,477.5 metres (14,690 ft) on the east and the Italian summit with a height of 4,476.4 metres (14,686 ft) on the west. Their names originated from the first ascents, not for geographic reasons, as they are both located on the border. In August 1792, the Genevan geologist and explorer Horace Bénédict de Saussure made the first measurement of the Matterhorn's height, using a 50-foot-long chain spread out on the Theodul glacier and a sextant. He calculated a height of 4,501.7 metres (14,769 ft). In 1868 the Italian engineer Felice Giordano measured a height of 4,505 metres (14,780 ft) by means of a mercurial barometer, which he had taken up to the summit. The Dufour map, which was afterwards followed by the Italian surveyors, gave 4,482 metres (14,705 ft) as the height of the Swiss summit. A recent survey (1999) using Global Positioning System technology has been made, allowing the height of the Matterhorn to be measured to within one centimetre accuracy, and its changes to be tracked. The result was 4,477.54 metres (14,690 ft).
Read more about this topic: Matterhorn
Famous quotes containing the word height:
“Alas! if the principles of contentment are not within us,—the height of station and worldly grandeur will as soon add a cubit to a man’s stature as to his happiness.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“Much more frequent in Hollywood than the emergence of Cinderella is her sudden vanishing. At our party, even in those glowing days, the clock was always striking twelve for someone at the height of greatness; and there was never a prince to fetch her back to the happy scene.”
—Ben Hecht (1893–1964)
“It would be naive to think that peace and justice can be achieved easily. No set of rules or study of history will automatically resolve the problems.... However, with faith and perseverance,... complex problems in the past have been resolved in our search for justice and peace. They can be resolved in the future, provided, of course, that we can think of five new ways to measure the height of a tall building by using a barometer.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)