146 Baron Humboldt on the Mountain-cJiains and 



that the southern has the greatest extent, and the fullest de- 

 velopment in respect of length. The Altai hardly attmns, 

 with its elevated summits, the 78th degree ; the Teen-shan, the 

 chain at whose foot are situated Hami, Aksu, and Cashgar, 

 reaches at least to the meridian of 69° 45' ; provided we place 

 Cashgar, according to the authority of the missionaries, in 71° 

 37' east of Paris *. The third and fourth systems are, as it were, 

 blended in the grand clusters of Badakshan, Little Tibet, and 

 Cashgar. Beyond the 69th and 70th meridians there is but one 

 chain, that of the Hindu-Kho, which is depressed towards He- 

 rat, but which afterwards, to the southward of Asterabad, rises 

 to a considerable height towards the volcanic and snowy moun- 

 tain of Demavend. The table-land of Iran, which, in its great- 

 est extension, from Tehran to Shiraz, appears to attain the ave- 

 rage height of 650 toises (4265 feet), throws off, towards India 

 and Tibet, two branches, the Himalaya and the Kwan-lun chain, 

 and forms a bifurcation of the rent from which the mountain- 

 ous masses arose. Thus the Kwan-lun may be considered as a 

 saliant branch of the Himalaya. The intermediate space, com- 

 prising Tibet and Katchi, is intersected by numerous rents in all 

 directions. This analogy with the most common phenomena of 

 the formation of veins is manifested in a very striking manner, 

 as I have elsewhere shewn, in the long and narrow line of the 

 Cordilleras of the New World. 



We may trace beyond the Caspian Sea, to the 45th meridian 

 (of Paris) the systems of the Himalaya and the Kwan-lun, which 

 are prolonged till they join in the group situated between Cash- 

 mer and Fyzabad. Thus the chain of the Himalaya remains 

 to the south of the Bolor, the Ak-tag, the Mingboolak, and the 

 Ala-tau, between Badakshan, Samerkand, and Turkestan; to the 

 east of the Caucasus it joins the table-land of Azerbidjan, and 

 bounds to the south the great depression, of which the Caspian 

 Sea and lake Aral-f- occupies the lowest basin, and in which a con- 

 aderable portion of the land whose surface is probably 18,000 



• The astronomical geography of Inner Asia is still very confused, because 

 the elements of the observations are not known, merely the results. 



•j- A series of barometrical levels continued throughout a very severe win- 

 ter, during the expedition of Colonel Berg, from the Caspian Sea to the west- 

 em shore of Lake Aral, at the Bay Mertvoy Kultuk, by Captains Duhamel 

 and Anjou, has demonstrated that the level of Lake Aral is 117 English feet 

 above that of the Caspian Sea. 



