366 KING'S TRAVELS IN SIAM AND CAMBODIA. [June 27, 1859. 



will readily a.i];ree with me that we are much indebted to these Bodies tor having 

 allowed us to meet here. The Council of this Society have this day agreed 

 to request these two distinguished Institutions to permit us to continue the use 

 of this room — that is, if the building itself should be permitted to remain in 

 existence. We hear rumours that it will not — rumours which, upon public 

 grounds, as well as in regard to the interests of this Society, I trust may not 

 be true. While we feel grateful to the Royal Society and to the University 

 of Loudon, I am sure I shall be only expressing the feelings of the Society 

 at large, if I indulge in the hope that this may not be the last occasion upon 

 which the Ro^'-al Geographical Society may assemble here. 



Sir Roderick Mukchison. — Before the meeting adjourns, allow me to call 

 its attention for one moment to some beautiful photographic sketches that are 

 now laid upon the table. On the occasion of the last Anniversary it was my 

 duty to notice the merits of those distinguished explorers of the distant parts 

 of Asia, the brothers Schlagintweit, one of whom, Adolphe, has unfortunately 

 fallen a victim to his zeal. The other brothers, Hermann and Robert, after 

 their various exploits, have now placed before us a number of illustrations 

 which they have prepared. These are chromo-lithograj^h sketches of those 

 very elevated mountains of the Himalayan range which thes6 gentlemen ex- 

 plored, and which now for the first time are made known to geographers. As 

 I find that one of my friends, Mr. Hermann Schlagintweit, is present, I take 

 the liberty of requesting that he be permitted to offer one or two observations 

 to the meeting in explanation of these sketches. 



Mr. H. Schlagintweit. — One of these drawings on the table represents 

 Kunchinjinga, one of the highest mountains in the Himalayan range, whose 

 altitude is 28,150 feet, and which is also interesting from the great analogy of its 

 geological formation to the higher summits of the Alps. It is not true granite, 

 but mica schist and gneiss ; the true granite is met with in the Himalayas, 

 but it forms a narrow zone at the southern foot of the Bhutan Himalayas. 

 Another plate represents, in similar execution, Gaurisankar, or Mount Everest, 

 till now the highest known mountain on the globe, found by Colonel AVaugh 

 to exceed 29,000 feet. I may mention in a few words the interesting significa- 

 tion of its native name, the meaning of which very nearly coincides with the 

 meaning of that which is given in the Bhutan to the highest of its Himalayan 

 summits, videlicet to Chamalari. In the name Gaurisankar, Gauri is the 

 name of a female deity, Siva's wife. In Chamalari Chama has the same 

 signification. Sankar, as well as Lha, is the respective name of Siva. In the 

 Bhutia name the word " ri," meaning mountain, is added, which is dropped 

 in the Nepalese name. A third plate represents one of the largest groups of 

 glaciers we have met with on our journey. It is a glacier of the first order — 

 considerably longer than any of the glaciers of the Alps, and interesting also 

 as showing, like all the great glaciers in the Himalayan and Tibetan ranges, 

 a much greater decrease than the glaciers do, generally speaking, in the Alps. 

 In the Alps we had occasion to measure a great number of glaciers with refer- 

 ence to their distance from the extreme m.oraines, and we found, as specified in 

 our '* Untersuchungen," to our surprise, that by far the greater part show a 

 small decrease — that is to say, the greater part of the Alpine glaciers was found 

 considerably distant from those moraines which could be considered as the 

 marks of their greatest extent in the recent periods of oscillations. But in the 

 Himalaj^as, there is not one glacier reaching its extreme moraine ; all of them 

 are decreasing. The cause of this general decrease is a very curious one. 

 The average depth to which the rivers have cut in the Alps does not exceed, 

 generally speaking, and rarely ever reaches 200 feet. In the Himalayas it 

 frequently occurs that this erosion reaches a depth of 1200 feet, and the con- 

 sequence is a very important one as regards the physical geography of the 

 country. The physical result, in reference to a glacier, is that not only a 



