HIMALEH, or Himalaya (literally the Seat of Snow), sometimes Himachal (Snowy Mountains), are the names given to a vast range of lofty mountains which separates India from the two Thibets, and forms the highest part of that extended chain which was known to the ancient writers of Europe by the names of Imaus or Emodus, which is, in all probability, a corruption of the Sanscrit name; as “ Imaus," says Pliny, “in the language of the natives, signifies snowy!

If we consider the Himalaya as extending from the defile near Cashmere through which the Setlij or Sutledge flows, to that through which the Brahmapootra passes, the length will be, from north-west to south-east, nearly 1000 British miles; the western extremity being about the latitude 32°, and longitude 77°; the eastern about the latitude 24°, and longitude 95°. Throughout the whole of this extent their snow-capt summits present a succession of peaks of great but unequal elevation, some of which, in the fine pure atmosphere of Hindustan, are visible at an almost incredible distance. “The southernmost ridge of the Bootan Mountains,” says Major Rennell, “rises near a mile and a half perpendicular above the plains of Bengal, in a horizontal distance of only fifteen miles; and, from the summit, the astonished traveller looks back on the plains, as on an extensive ocean beneath him.” Beyond is a chain of peaks still higher, which, he adds, “are visible from the plains of Bengal, at the distance of 150 miles, and are commonly covered with snow.” From these expressions, and from his conclusion of their being “in point of elevation equal to any of the mountains of the old hemisphere,” it is quite clear that this celebrated geographer had no adequate idea of their real height.

On the northern termination of the plains of Hindustan is a narrow belt of a thickly wooded, swampy country, called Terrecana, between which and the base of the great Himalaya chain lies a broad tract of a rugged, mountainous region, from sixty to a hundred miles in width, full of fertile and well-peopled valleys, and once divided into a number of petty states, which are now mostly absorbed by the British or the Chinese empires; the latter at least laying claim to some of the hilly countries to the south of the Himalaya, as tributary states, to which our recent conquests have brought us into immediate contact. Beginning at the westward, the principal of these states were Serinagur, Almora, Kemaoon, Gorkah, Nepaul, and Bootan: all of these are parts of the mountainous belt, and their towns and fortresses occupy the summits of hills rising to the height of from 4000 to 6000 feet; and many of the shoulders or abutments which connect these hills with the lofty range of Himalaya are from 8000 to 14,000 feet high. The great extent of these mountain masses produces a greater degree of cold in winter than would probably be found in the same degree of latitude in Europe at an equal elevation; and, as will presently appear, a greater degree of heat also. In the middle of winter the snow covers the summits of those inferior hills, and falls sometimes even in the interjacent valleys; but the climate, in every part of this mountainous region, is delightfully fine, and almost all the species of European vegetables are found in a native state, and growing in the greatest luxuriance. In fact, since we have had free access to the base of the Himalaya range, it has been discovered that the general character of the vegetation corresponds very nearly with that of the middle and southern parts of Europe, and that a very large portion of the trees and shrubs of the latter are indigenous in the former; such as pines of various species,oaks, chestnuts,horse-chestnuts, walnuts,birch, the hazel, the raspberry, gooseberry, bilberry, barberry, and strawberries. Many of the flowering shrubs, and the humbler plants, as the polyanthus, anemone, and ranunculus, the common and lemon thyme, mint, sweet basil and a great variety of other aromatic plants, clothe the sides of the hills, and shed their fragrant odours around. Moorcroft mentions the furze (Ulex European, which was supposed not to be met with out of Europe. These hills may be considered as the roots and branches of the great stem, all of them connected more or less remotely with it, and appearing at a distance, when seen from the plains of Hindustan, as a succession of inferior ranges; but, on entering the country, “the whole,” says Mr Fraser, “becomes a confused and chaotic assemblage of most rugged mountains, huddled into masses and peaks, and running into ridges which defy arrangement.”^[1. Journal of a Tour through part of the Snowy Range of the Himalaya Mountains, 4to, Lond. 1820. ]

The highest peaks of the Himalaya Mountains had long been noticed before it was known or even conjectured what their absolute height might be above the level of the sea. All the information respecting them that could be obtained was derived from Hindu pilgrims, who annually flocked to pay their devotions at the shrine of some deity presiding over the various wild and awful features of these elevated regions. To a people gifted, like the Hindus, with strong imaginative faculties, the snow-capt summits of the Himalaya Mountains, and the numerous torrents issuing from their bosom, which, when united into one grand stream, carried fertility over their extensive plains, could not fail to become so many varied objects of their veneration. From the accounts of these people, the main branch of the Ganges was represented to issue from a chasm or cavern in the side of the mountains, to which, from its supposed resemblance to the mouth of an animal sacred in the ritual of their faith, was given the name of the Cow’s Mouth. This cavern was supposed to perforate the great chain of mountains, and the source of the Ganges to be in a lake on the other side, considerably to the eastward of the Cow’s Mouth. This lake was named Manasarovara, and was held sacred; and, under the impression of the relation of pilgrims being correct, the source and passage of the Ganges were laid down in the most improved maps of Hindustan.

The authority, however, on which this hypothesis rested not being deemed satisfactory, it was determined by the Bengal government that an expedition should be undertaken to ascertain how the fact stood; and Captains Raper and Hearsay, accompanied by Captain Webb, assistantsurveyor, set out in the spring of the year 1808, in order to clear up this point; and from their observations, and those of more recent travellers, it has now been ascertained, that the main sources of the Ganges are all on the southern side of the great Himalaya chain; and that, reckoning from the westward, they consist of, 1. the Jumna (whose two great branches are the Girree and the Touse); 2. the Bhagiruttee, whose source is near the celebrated spot called Gangoutri, where the Cow’s Mouth is supposed to be situated; and, 3. the Alkananda, with its numerous tributary streams, the last of which rivers is now acknowledged as the main branch of the Ganges.

The object of Captains Raper and Hearsay was to penetrate as far as possible to the sources of the two great branches, the Bhagiruttee and the Alkananda∙ With great difficulty and fatigue they approached near enough to Gan- goutri to enable them to conclude, from the contraction of the stream, and the stupendous height and unbroken sides of the Himalaya Mountains, that “there can be no doubt but the source of that branch is situated in the snowy range;” and that “any other hypothesis can scarcely be reconciled to hydrostatical principles.” Not quite satisfied, however, with this conclusion, they dispatched one of those [7:11:369]fanatics of India, known by the name of Fakirs, who deem a pilgrimage to Gangoutri to have the effect of redeeming the person performing it from all the troubles of this life, and of ensuring him a happy passage through all the stages of transmigration which he is destined to undergo in another, to push his inquiries farther into the mountains. This man reported, on his return, that, a few miles beyond Gangoutri, the river was lost under vast beds of snow, and that a rock in the midst of the rushing stream resembled the body and head of a cow; and here the valley was terminated by the steep and wall-sided mountain.

The party next set out in order to trace the other great stream of the Ganges, the Alkananda, and succeeded in reaching a spot four or five miles beyond the temple of Bhadrinath, where the stream was narrowed to eighteen or twenty feet, and where “the north faces of the mountains were completely covered with snow from the summit to the base.” A little way beyond this place was a cascade named Barsiè d’Hara, where the Alkananda (or, as sometimes called, the Vishnuganga) was entirely concealed under immense heaps of snow, beyond which no traveller has been known to pass. Yet this place was estimated to be still distant about twenty miles from the southern front of the Himalaya chain. In these lofty regions, beyond Bhadrinath, stands the populous town of Manah, consisting of two hundred houses; the inhabitants of a different race from the generality of the mountaineers; and, from their broad faces, small eyes, and olive-coloured complexions, evidently of a Tartar origin. Seven hundred villages are said to be attached to the temple of Bhadrinath, whose sanctity may be estimated by the fact of no less than 40,000 pilgrims, chiefly fakirs, having visited it that year.

Not less holy in the estimation of the Hindus, though less frequented from the difficulty of access, is the source of the main stream of the Alkananda, named the Cali-gunga, near which is situated the temple of Kedar-nath, at an elevation of 12,000 feet nearly above the level of the sea. This place was not visited by Messrs Raper and Hearsay, but its height was ascertained barometrically by Captain Webb.

Though this expedition threw considerable light on the nature of the country between the plains of Hindustan and the southern base of the Himalaya Mountains, and succeeded in tracing two of the most considerable branches of the Ganges nearly to their sources, still the great chain of the Himalaya itself had not yet been approached, and the altitude of its various peaks above the level of the sea remained undecided. The account however given by Captain Raper (Asiatic Researches, vol. xii.) is full of interesting and important details.

The task of penetrating this vast chain was left to the exertions of a more daring traveller. Mr Moorcroft, accompanied by Captain Hearsay, the same who had been on the former expedition, and by a Hindu pundit of the name of Harkh Deo, set out with the hope of finding a passage across these mountains into the regions of Tartary, in order to purchase horses and the shawl-goat, and, at the same time, to collect such geographical information respecting these unknown regions as might fall within their reach. With the latter view, the learned pundit was engaged for the express purpose of striding over these mountainous regions, along the whole route, in regular paces of four feet each; a task which, it seems, he performed with exemplary patience and perseverance, across rocks, and rivers, and the most rugged precipices, without failing or faultering, except on one single occasion, where a piece of rock had slipped out of a narrow ledge on the very verge of a tremendous declivity, and left a gap just wide enough to show an abyss below, of a depth sufficient to appal the stoutest heart.

Beginning their operations at the point where the Dauli river falls into the Alkananda, they followed up the former to the very base of the Himalaya, and, after eighteen days of excessive fatigue, reached a gorge in the mountains, named the Nitee Ghati, or Pass of Nitee. At some distance below it was a small village of the same name, the great height of which was inferred by the hill, terminating the valley on which it stood, being tipped with snow on the 5th of June, and also by a quick breathing with which Mr Moorcroft was seized, and which obliged him to stop every four or five steps; he complained also of a sense of fulness in the head, accompanied by giddiness. In ascending the Ghaut, the difficulty of breathing increased, with great oppression about the heart; and, when on the point of falling asleep, a sense of suffocation was felt, and sighing became frequent and distressing. The same symptoms of oppression and debility were experienced by Μ. Saussure on the Alps, which he ascribed rather to the presence of carbonic acid gas, than to the tenuity of the atmosphere. We conceive, however, that the great height alone is sufficient to account for these symptoms.

At Nitee the travellers were informed that the passage of the mountains was never attempted before Sancrant, or the entrance of the sun into Cancer; they waited, therefore, till the 24th of June. For the last twenty days the thermometer at sun-rise was generally about 46°, at noon 72°, and from that to 80°; the nights were clear and serene; the birch trees and rose bushes were just then bursting into leaf, the furze coming into blossom, and the grain appearing above the ground.

The length of the Nitee Pass is about two miles; it leads to an elevated plain, to which there is little or no descent, called by the natives Undes or Ondes, which signifies “the country of wood.” The name of Thibet was not known to them, and Captain Webb thinks it may have been derived from Teiba, which signifies, in the Gorkah language, “high-peaked mountains.” The mountains crossing this plain, or rising in detached masses out of its surface, were covered with snow. - The first, and indeed the only continued ridge seen by Moorcroft, was at the distance of about forty miles from the Himalaya, and nearly parallel to it, closing, however, gradually upon it to the eastward; but, at the distance of above eighty miles, they united, not far from the two lakes of Rawan-hrad and Manasarovara, which were separated from each other by a slip of land about four or five miles in width. The ridge thus uniting with the Himalaya is named Caillas, which is rather a generic term for any high mountain, than peculiar to a single one, and is among the Hindus what Olympus was among the Greeks.

The intermediate plain consists of a rugged stony surface, bristled in some places with rude shapeless rocks, and in others scooped out into broad and deep ravines, presenting on every side an extended dreary waste, without a tree or shrub to enliven the prospect, the only vegetation being confined to some low furze bushes, a woolly plant like everlasting, tufts of silky grass, and a species of moss, exhibiting a sickly green, among patches of snow and splashes of snow water. The only enlivening objects that appeared to Mr Moorcroft and his party were “two very beautiful poplar trees, in which were many goldfinches.” These were on the banks of a considerable stream, flowing to the westward, down the middle of the plain, in the bed of which was a species of tamarisk, then in blossom, and reaching to the height of eight feet.

This river was then conjectured, and has since been ascertained, to be the Sutledge or Satudra. It rises in the lake Rawan-hrad, to the eastward of any of the sources of the Ganges, and, having collected in its western course the various streams from the northern face of the Hima [7:11:370]laya, and the southern face of the Caillas, finds a passage through the former chain, near Mount Kantel, on the eastern side of Cashmere; and, on entering the plain of Hindustan, becomes the easternmost of the Punjab, or Five Rivers, the boundary of our Indian possessions to the westward; and, in its course to the southward, joins the Indus. This source and direction of the Sutledge can now be no longer doubted, as its course, which was ascertained by Mr Baillie Fraser to lie through the great range of mountains, has been traced back through the ravine of the Himalaya, and for a considerable distance to the eastward. On this elevated plain is situated the town of Deba.

Mr Moorcroft and his party having passed the first tableland, crossed the Caillas range, on the other side of which the rugged plain extended beyond the reach of sight. The numerous streams from the northern face of Caillas, uniting in the vale of Ghertope, form a river of considerable magnitude, which, from information, pursues a northwesterly course for some hundred miles, passes by Latak, and then crossing the Hindu Coosh, which may be considered as a prolongation of the Himalaya, to the westward of Cashmere, assumes the name of Indus or Scinde; of which great river it may be considered as one of the main branches, the other coming from the northward out of the mountains called the Moos-tag.

Mr Moorcroft did not ascertain what river or rivers flowed out of the lake Manasarovara, and seems to think that it has no outlet. This is very improbable, as its water was fresh, and there seems to be little doubt but the Sanpoo, or the main branch of the Brahmapootra, issues from its eastern extremity. In that case, this lake may be considered as about the highest part of the general level of the great plateau of Tartary.

Thus, by the exertions of intelligent travellers, the geography of the great mountainous buttress which supports the elevated regions of Thibet and Tartary has been pretty well ascertained; but all is still conjecture as far as regards an extensive range of country to the north, the north-west, and north-east of the Caillas range of mountains.

Neither the ancients, to whom the Himalaya Mountains were well known, nor the Hindus, to whom they have always been the cherished objects of veneration, nor our countrymen, who, from the plains of Bengal, had so often gazed at their snow-capped summits from a distance of 150 miles, ventured to form a conjecture even of their absolute height above the level of those plains. Mr Colebrooke, in his Note to Captain Raper’s Narrative, observes that, “without supposing the Himalaya to exceed the Andes, there is still room to argue, that an extensive range of mountains, which rears high above the line of perpetual snow, in an almost tropical latitude, an uninterrupted chain of lofty peaks, is neither surpassed nor rivalled by any other chain of mountains but the Cordilleras of the Andes.” Shortly after this, however, he thinks the observations of Captain Webb “authorize the opinion, that the Himalaya is the loftiest range of alpine mountains which has yet been noticed, its most elevated peaks exceeding the highest of the Andes.”

The highest part of the Himalaya is about the centre of the chain, or between the source of the Bhagiruttee and the valley of Nepaul. From an observation taken by Colonel Crawford (when at Cathmandu, in Nepaul, in 1802) of very small angles at the extremities of a short measured base, it is concluded that one peak, called Ðhaibun, rose to an elevation of 20,140 feet above the spot where the observation was made; which being itself 4500 feet above the level of the sea, would make the height of this peak 24,640 feet. By similar observations, the height of another peak was proved to be 22,319 feet, of another 24,525, another 22,952 feet, and of a fifth 23,162 feet, above the level of the sea.

But the peak which was found to possess the most extraordinary elevation was that called Dharvala-giri, or the White Mountain. By a mean of three observations, taken from the following computed distances, and seen under their respective angles·, namely,

At station A, distance 89∙j⅞ 5 ττ miles. Ang. 2° 48'

B, 102 τ 8 ∕θ 2 ° l θ ' C, 136 τ ¾⅛ 1° 22/ and, by allowing for refraction, the height of this moun tain is calculated at 27,677 feet above the plains of Go-rak’hpur; which plains being 400 feet above the mouth of the Ganges, it follows that the whole height of Dhawala-giri must be taken at more than 28,000 feet above the level of the sea. By a subsequent calculation, however, the height of this peak was reduced to 26,862 feet. Of this and six other peaks, the following are the results of Mr Colebrooke’s calculations, made from the observations of Captain Webb:

Feet.

Dhawala-giri, “on the lowest computation”...26,862 Jamunawatari, or Jamautri 25,500

A mountain supposed to be Dhaibun 24,740

A nameless mountain 22,768

Another nameless mountain 24,625

Another, near the last 23,262

A third, in its vicinity 23,052

These heights are probably exaggerated; it appears, indeed, that subsequent observations, made by Captain Webb, with an excellent instrument, from the extremities of a well-determined and sufficient base, have decided them to be so. They make, for instance, the height of the first “nameless mountain” in the above table only 21,000 feet above the plains of Rohilkhund, or 21,500 above the level of the sea, being a deduction from Mr Colebrooke’s calculation, for the same mountain, of 1268 feet.

The following table exhibits the results of Captain Webb’s corrected observations, of no less than twenty-seven different peaks of the Himalaya range, as taken in the progress of his survey of Kumaon, but for the accuracy of which he candidly admits it would be impossible to vouch, in all the circumstances under which the observations were taken. They are, however, in all probability, not far from the truth:

No. of Peak. Altitude. No. of Peak. Altitude.

1 22,345 15 22,419

2 22,058 16 17,994

3 22,840 17 19,153

4 21,611 18 21,439

5 19,106 ] 9 22,635

6 22,498 20 20,407

7 22,578 21 19,099

8 23,164 22 19,497

9 21,311 23 22,727

10 15,733 24 22,238

11 20,68 1 25 22,277

12 23,263 26 21,045

13 22,313 27 20,923

14 25,669

After these trigonometrical deductions had been made, Captain Webb had the good fortune to succeed in making several barometrical observations in the Nitee Pass, through which Moorcroft had reached the plateau of Tartary. In his way thither he reached nearly the base of those lofty peaks of the Himalaya which tower above the temple of Kedar-nath, and the altitudes of which are amongst those previously determined by triangulation, at a great distance, and seen under very small angles. He had, however, at this place, the advantage of observing one of these peaks under an angle of 2b o 15' 15''; and [7:11:371]this, he says, gave him a result that agreed as well as could be expected with the position and altitude he had formerly assigned to it. The temple itself, by the mean of five barometers, was found to be 11,897 feet above the level of Calcutta, or about 12,000 above that of the sea, vet no snow lay near it in the beginning of July.

Captain Webb next proceeded to Josimuth, near the commencement of the defile leading to the Nitee Pass, where he met with one of the civil servants of the East India Company proceeding on a mission to the frontier, with a view of opening a commercial intercourse with the Tartars. These subjects of China, however, declined all connection with us, and pushed forward picquets of cavalry to guard the pass. This untoward circumstance did not deter Captain Webb from proceeding. On approaching the pass he experienced the same difficulty of breathing which occurred to Moorcroft, and from the influence of which, he says, neither horses nor yaks are exempt. The natives call it Eis-Kee-huiva, or the poisonous atmosphere; and conceive it to be owing to the effluvia of certain flowers.

He found in the pass a troop of Tartar cavalry, who, with some inhabitants of Deba, received him kindly, and consented to let him remain until an answer should be received from Ghertope respecting his farther progress, which, at the end of fifteen days, was a negative, or, which amounted to the same thing, a reference to the viceroy of Lassa. He had been permitted, however, to proceed to the crest or highest ridge of the Nitee Ghaut, which is at or near its farthest extremity, and to make his observations, which are exceedingly interesting and important. On the 21st of August, at three p. μ., by the mean of four barometers, the mercury stood at 16,27 inches, and the thermometer at 47°; and on the same day and hour, and the two preceding and following days, the state of the barometer and thermometer at Dumdum, about fifty feet above the sea, by a journal of the weather kept by Colonel Hardwicke, was as follows:

Aug. 19, barometer 29,46 inches. Ther∙ 88°

20 29,46 84

21 29,48 85

22 29,48 84

23 29,65 81

Mean 29,51 84∙4

From which the Nitee Ghaut above Dumdum must be 16,764 feet, and above the sea 16,814 feet. Yet, at this extraordinary elevation, not a vestige of snow appeared in the Ghaut, nor on the shoulder of the ridge on the left of the pass, which rose to the height of 300 feet above it; and hence it would appear that the lower point of congelation, on the northern or Tartarian side of the Himalaya, is not less than seventeen thousand feet.

From the crest of the Ghaut Captain Webb was able to perceive the line of the Sutledge winding through the plain to the westward, and to take the angle of depression, from which, and Moorcroft’s distance (generally found to be correct), he determined the elevation of this lowest part of the table-land of Thibet to be 15,924 feet. The angle of depresssion was 1° 28' 10", and the distance 15^ British miles. Notwithstanding this enormous elevation of 15,000 feet, the banks of the Sutledge afford the finest pastures for myriads of quadrupeds; and crops of a species of barley called ooa, from which the natives make their bread, are annually produced. Nay more; on the cheeks of the Nitee Pass plants were found that ripened their seed at the height of 17,000 feet. These singular anomalies, so utterly at variance with the theories of Humboldt, Leslie, Kirwan, and all European writers on the subject, can only be explained with reference to the great radiation of heat from that vast extent of elevated land that rises out of Central Asia like the boss of a shield, creating as it were a new atmosphere of its own. “As the heat,” says the Baron de Humboldt, “of high regions of the atmosphere depends on the radiation of the plains, it is conceived that, under the same geographical parallel, çne may not find in the system of transatlantic climates the isothermal lines of the same elevation above the level of the sea, as in the system of European climates.” For the same reason, the system will apply still less to the climates of Central Asia. The same philosopher has observed, that the Cordilleras of the Andes, though they extend from north to south 120 degrees of latitude, are, generally speaking, not more than from two to three, and very rarely from four to five degrees in breadth; but the vast surface of table-land, supported by the great Himalaya buttress, stretching from Daouria on the east, to Belur-tagh on the west, through 47 degrees of longitude, and from the Altai on the north, to the Himalaya on the south, through a mean breadth of 20 degrees of latitude, presents a plateau, more or less elevated, equal to above three millions of square miles.

In confirmation of the great influence of radiated heat from extensive elevated plains, some strong facts are exhibited both in America and Asia. Thus, on the mountains which rise out of the elevated plain of Mexico Humboldt observed the lower line of perpetual congelation, in lat. 19°-20°, at 15,090 feet above the sea, which, by the table of Professor Leslie, ought to have been at 13,560, making a difference between fact and theory of 1530 feet. The lower point on the side of Chimboraço, nearly under the equator, was 15,746 feet, being only 656 feet higher than on the mountains of Mexico whereas, by Leslie’s table, the difference ought to be 1729 feet. Compare, again, the height of this lower limit of perpetual congelation on the side of Chimboraço with the observations of Captain Webb in the Nitee Pass, and we have the extraordinary anomaly of a place in Asia, in 30° of latitude, having that limit higher by 1253 feet than another place in America immediately under the equinoctial line, and at 5500 feet, or more than a mile, higher than it ought to be in that parallel of latitude, according to the theory on which Professor Leslie constructed his table.^[2. See the article Climate. ]

It is right to observe, however, that the same anomaly exists, though in a less degree, on the southern face and abutments of the Himalaya range. Thus the elevation of Kedar-nath, at 12,000 feet, is below the verge of perpetual snow, which in Europe, on the same parallel of latitude, would be at 700 feet lower. Thus, also, the village and temple of Milem, in lat. 30° 25', were not only without snow at the height of 11,790 feet, but extensive fields of buckwheat and Tartaric barley were growing at that elevation. In the same degree of latitude the same height in Europe would be some hundred feet within the limits of perpetual snow. At the same height, on the 21st of June, Captain Webb’s encampment was surrounded with flourishing woods of oaks, of the long-leafed pine, and the arborescent rhododendron, and the surface was clothed with a rank vegetation. On the following day he determined the elevation of Pilgointi-Churhai Pass to be more than 12,700 feet above the sea; yet even here no snow was visible, but the black soil was dad with creeping plants; and the shoulder of a mountain rising still higher was without a vestige of snow, and appeared, as far as could be seen through the mist, enamelled with flowers. The reflected heat from the perpendicular face of the immense mass of naked rock, on which snow cannot rest, exposed to the [7:11:372]rays of a south-western sun, will probably be deemed sufficient to explain the anomaly which is found to exist on the southern side of the chain.

Of the geological strata of these mountains we have notas yet full information. Mr Baillie Fraser, who penetrated to the very base of the great chain, at the head of the Jumna and the Bhagiruttee branches, describes the first and inferior hills of sandstone, more or less destructible, of indurated clay, with beds of rounded pebbles and gravel. The second ridge of hills, rising to the height of 1500 to 5000 feet, are sharp, rough, and run into numerous ridges, divided by deep shaggy dells; and the crests of the ridges are frequently so sharp that two persons can hardly stand abreast upon them. Beyond these are a mass of hills entirely composed of limestone, of a round, lumpish, rugged character, whose highest points may be from 5000 to 7000 feet. Next to these commences the schistus, or slate, which continues to the very roots of the Snowy Mountains. All above appeared to be striated hard grey gneiss, and a compact granite, which, Mr Fraser supposes, is the material which constitutes the highest ridges and crests of this great mountain range; but schistus is the rock that mostly predominates. Hot springs are found on both sides of the Himalaya; and copper, lead, and iron, are commonly met with. Gold is also found in the beds of the rivers. Captain Webb obtained the petrified bones of an animal of the deer kind, which were dug out of a bed of gravel, on the side of the Caillas Mountain, at least 16,000 feet above the level of the sea, a height at which, it may safely be asserted, no other organic remains have hitherto been discovered.

For some further statements of the height of the highest peaks of the Andes, as compared with those of the Himalaya chain, see the article Asia.