94 Captain Thomas Hutton's Remarks on the 



either by me or by those gentlemen whose opinions and observations 

 corroborated mine, to refute the facts which Webb and others had ob- 

 served in Kumaon, but that, on the contrary, while we admitted those 

 facts to be true, we still thought we saw reason to conclude from what 

 had been witnessed in other parts of the mountains, that they could 

 be regarded only as locally and not generally true. 



With regard, then, to the actual point in dispute, Lieut. Strachey has 

 done nothing ; for, to prove that his imaginary opponents were wrong, 

 he would have collected his data from the districts in which their ob- 

 servations were made ; yet, while confidently pronouncing them to 

 be in error, he ingenuously informs us that he never was in those 

 districts ! * 



W^hat, then, is the true value of his assertions and assumptions % 

 Does he imagine that the scientific world will be content to accept 

 his unsupported '* ipse dixit''' in preference to the actual observations 

 of four independent inquirers, each of whom is fully as competent as 

 himself to judge of what he sees ? Did it never occur to him, that 

 that which may be locally true in one district is not necessarily true 

 in general, when applied to the whole extent of the Himalayan range ? 



The first objection made to my views arises evidently from my 

 opponent's ignorance of the localities spoken of, he, according to his 

 own acknowledgment in a note at p. 297 of the Journal above men- 

 tioned, distinctly stating that he never was there himself ! Yet he 

 does not hesitate to assume, that " the true Himalaya," of which I 

 wrote, was the Bissehir or southern snowy range. Had he possessed 

 any personal knowledge of the country over which I had travelled, 

 he would have seen that all the passes mentioned in my letters were 

 situated beyond that range, and to the north of it, while, since he 

 admits that " the mountains on which perpetual (?) snow is found 

 all lie between the 30th and 32d degree of north latitude," a glance 

 at his map would have shewn him that the locality of my observa- 

 tions is situated between 31° 30' and 32°, or as completely beyond 

 the Bissehir range as his own locality is north of Kumaon. 



In regard to the mistakes into which I am stated to have fallen, 

 in confounding " the north and south aspects of the individual ridges 

 with the north and south aspects of the chain,'''' I have to observe, 

 that the mistake is due rather to my readers than to myself, for, in 

 stating that " dense forests and vegetation occur along the southern 

 slopes, while they are nearly altogether wanting on the northern 

 face,'''' it is evident that I referred to the true north and south as- 

 pects of the chain ; whereas my opponents chose to imagine that I 

 referred " to the north and south aspects of individual ridges ;" 

 hence Mr Batten's objections at page 384 of No. 19 of Calcutta 



* Lieut. Strachey has quoted Captain Cunningham's remarks as confirmative 

 of his own opinions, but the latter gentleman, in a recent paper, appears to 

 plead " not guilty" to the impeachment. 



