Colvin

I found Colvin’s account of his ascent of Mount Seward interesting because of its value both as a scientific document and travel narrative. While Colvin assures his reader that the primary objective of his expedition to determine the height of the mountain by measuring barometric pressure, the expedition seems to be recreational as well. Like Adirondack Murray, Colvin praises his guides as rugged individuals and outstanding people. Colvin’s writing seems incomplete as a scientific text--he seems to dump barometric data at seemingly arbitrary points in the narrative. After reading this I wanted to gain a better understanding of the science behind Colvin’s method. Here’s an attempt--maybe one of the scientists in the class could help me out. A quick google search turned up curves for the relationship between elevation and pressure, the formulas for which seem cluttered with ugly constants. I wonder how precise this method of determining altitude from pressure is since atmospheric pressure varies with the weather as well. I imagine the fact that Colvin overestimated the height of the mountain by over 600 feet suggests some limitations to this process.