Snow-Line in the Himalaya. 95 



Journal of Natural History, where that gentleman says, he is con- 

 vinced that Captain Hutton confounds the singular with the plural 

 number ! viz., " slope with slopes." Had he been kind enough to 

 imagine that it was just within the bounds of possibility that the 

 final s was a slip of the pen, he would have been much nearer the 

 truth. Indeed, he might have seen that such was the case, from 

 the immediately subsequent mention of " the northern /ace," in the 

 singular, as contrasted with " the southern slopes" 



But although Lieut. Strachey has deemed it necessary to lay such 

 stress upon what he imagines to be a grave error, it is remarkable 

 that he has studiously abstained from accepting the explanation of 

 my meaning, given at p. 380 of the same number of that Journal, in 

 these words : — " Capt. Jack objects to my stating that ' dense forests 

 and vegetation occur along the southern slopes, while they are nearly 

 altogether wanting on the northern face ;' in making this statement, 

 I referred, not to the southern slopes of secondary or minor ranges 

 on the bis-Himalayan aspect, hut to the fact, that forests and dense 

 vegetation are found on the south of the 'principal chain or true 

 Himalaya, while on the northern aspect of that range they are 

 nearly altogether wanting. This assertion will, I doubt not, be borne 

 out by every one who has crossed into Tartary ; for, while to the 

 south of the great chain, we find superb and stately forests, on the 

 north there is scarcely a tree to be seen, and the few that are occa- 

 sionally met with are either stunted cypresses growing in the moist 

 soil of ravines, or poplars planted round a village by the hand of 

 man, for economical purposes." 



Now, as a mathematician, my opponent should have known, that 

 when a man assumes his own data, he ought to be able to prove 

 anything he likes ; and assuredly he is bound to establish the point 

 for which he is contending ; yet, acting on this principle, he has 

 somehow only contrived to prove himself in error, for, knowing no- 

 thing of the western Himalaya, and assuming that I mean one thing, 

 when I have distinctly stated that I mean another, he proceeds to 

 draw conclusions which will not bear a moment's examination. Had 

 he, before passing sentence of condemnation, bent his footsteps to- 

 wards the upper parts of Kunawur, he would have found that forests 

 are not wanting to the north of Bissehir range, and, consequently, 

 that my remarks could not apply to it as the water-shed. It is not 

 until the traveller surmounts the passes which lead from upper Kuna- 

 wur into the Tartar districts, that he beholds on the one hand a 

 wooded country, and on the other a comparatively barren waste, 

 and when he has consequently placed nearly the whole of Kunawur 

 between himself and the Bissehir range to the south. 



*• The doctrine," says Lieut. Strachey, " which Captain Hutton 

 attacks as erroneous, undoubtedly is so. But it is a doctrine that 

 was never inculcated by any one. Captain Hutton having mis- 

 understood the true enumeration of a proposition, reproduces it ac- 



