140 Historical 



made such an impression on him that he reported - 1 it to the pro- 

 fessors of the Museum of Natural History, and tried to explain it: 



Kurnaul, February 1, 1831 

 Several English travellers have crossed the pass of Bouroune 

 (about 15,000 feet), and all complain of the headaches and nausea 

 they experienced there. I have gone through much higher places, 

 because I camped three times above 16,000 feet, and on my way to 

 Beckhur, I had to cross passes at an altitude of more than 18,000 

 feet. I have never felt any of the painful symptoms of which all 

 travellers on lofty mountains complain, and I have never observed 

 them in even one of the numerous companions of my excursions. I 

 lived seven months in the Himalayas; I have ascended from their feet 

 to their summits; at the time of my journey to Beckhur, four times I 

 ascended to an altitude of 6000 meters, and for almost two months I 

 almost never went below 3000 meters; then I camped at 4000 meters 

 after a stay at 5000 meters. When the ascent is so gradual, the lungs 

 easily become accustomed to working freely in an atmosphere which 

 gradually becomes more rarified. It is a very considerable change of 

 level in a short time that affects them and produces the oppression 

 mentioned by Saussure and all who ascended Mont Blanc after him, 

 long before they reached the summit. (P. 53.) 



The interesting notes he left, which were published after his 

 death, 2 - 2 contain very interesting observations on this subject, to 

 which he had given particular attention: 



May 16, 1830, I reached an altitude of 3927 meters .... This 

 was the first time I had ascended to so great a height; it exceeds that 

 at which the effects of the rarefaction of the air begin to be felt 

 painfully in the Alps. I did not feel them at all; I was no more out 

 of breath than I should have been at the lowest level, if I climbed 

 equal grades with the same speed. 



I saw no real symptoms in any of the people who followed me; 

 no panting, nor drowsiness, nor nausea. 



It seems to me that in the temperate climates, on parallels like 

 those of the Alps and the Pyrenees, one feels them sooner than on 

 mountains nearer the equator. If this statement stands out uniformly 

 in the testimony of travellers, it is hard to explain. The effect, if it 

 depends solely on the atmospheric rarefaction, should be the same at 

 the same altitude in all the regions of the earth, or even greater in 

 the tropical countries where the temperature rarities the air more 

 at the same elevation. (P. 101.) 



Jacquemont refers repeatedly to this harmlessness of the heights 

 of the Himalayas compared to the bad effects in the Alps; in the 

 following passage he even offers an explanation of it which has 

 some foundation: 



I crossed the pass of Rounang, at an elevation of more than 4267 

 meters, three times, on horseback. 



