96 Captain Thomas Hutton's Beniarks on the 



cording to his own mistaken views, and then destroys the phantom 

 that he has raised." With all due deference to Lieut. Strachey, he 

 must permit me to remind him that assertion, however confidently 

 made, is neither proof nor argument, and that the doctrine to which 

 I alluded did exist, may be gathered from Captain Jack's letter, in 

 No. 15, p. 458, of the Calcutta Journal of Natural History^ and 

 likewise from Dr Lord's remarks or the Hindu Kush,* which, by 

 the way, Lieut. Strachey does not deem it safe to comment upon I 

 Moreover, " the 'phantom'^ which I and my supporters destroyed, 

 was neither more nor less than this, — that whereas the common 

 doctrine assigned as an universal rule, a lower elevation to the 

 southern snow-line than to the northern, we shewed that it was only 

 partially, and not universally applicable. Lieut. Strachey, how- 

 ever, having rejected the explanation of my meaning, as well as 

 everything tending to militate against his own preconceived notions, 

 and having himself misunderstood the true enunciation of my propo- 

 sition, denies to his opponents the right of crediting the evidence of 

 their senses, and leads them to infer that he is unwilling to admit 

 the truth of any fact which he cannot actually see. The erroneous 

 idea, which he has imbibed, that the Bissehir range is my true Hima- 

 laya, as he loves to call it, is founded on an assumption arising 

 solely from his total want of knowledge of the localities in which my 

 observations were made. 



In quoting from Captain Cunningham's letter to me, Lieut. 

 Strachey is careful to extract only so much as may tend to corrobo- 

 rate his own views ; but in theorising on the probable causes which 

 tend to accumulate a greater quantity of snow on the southern than 

 on the northern aspect, and which, he thinks, he finds in the sudden 

 congelation of moisture-bearing winds from the south, he is pleased 

 altogether to disregard Captain Cunningham's observation that it is 

 the violence of this same southerly wind which actually keeps the 

 southern slopes of Tarta,ry free from snow, and that too at all times. 



Contrary to all Lieut. Strachey 's views and theories, we find Cap- 

 tain Cunningham writing from Tartar districts that, " in January 

 and February, and indeed at all times, the violent southerly winds 

 kept southern exposures free from snow^ Again, he says, " no 

 snow whatever on southern slopes within 15 to 16,000, but on north- 

 ern slopes and in hollows, abundance of snow." Again, '* February 

 10th and 11th, in getting up the northern slopes, the snow was I 

 don'*t know how deep ; on reaching the summit of a pass, I found no 

 snow, nor did I find any on the southern slopes, except in hollow 

 portions or tolerably flat bits. The highest pass on the road is per- 

 haps 13,500, or nearly 14,000 feet." (This too. be it remembered, in 

 notoriously the severest month of winter, in these hills !) *' The 

 effect,"" he continues, " is attributable partly to the violent southerly 



♦ Cal. J. Nat. Hist., No. 14, p. 276. 



