How to find the highest z-index using jQuery

Note that z-index only affects positioned elements. Therefore, any element with position: static will not have a z-index, even if you assign it a value. This is especially true in browsers like Google Chrome.

var index_highest = 0;   
// more effective to have a class for the div you want to search and 
// pass that to your selector
$("#layer-1,#layer-2,#layer-3,#layer-4").each(function() {
    // always use a radix when using parseInt
    var index_current = parseInt($(this).css("zIndex"), 10);
    if(index_current > index_highest) {
        index_highest = index_current;
    }
});

JSFiddle demo

A general jQuery selector like that when used with an option that returns one value will merely return the first So your result is simply the z-index of the first div that jQuery grabs. To grab only the divs you want, use a class on them. If you want all divs, stick with div.