228 SEE— FURTHER RESEARCHES ON [April 24, 



recognized. Considerable obscurity still involves the eastern portion of 

 these mountains, and there is great want of precise knowledge as to their 

 connection with the ranges of western China, from which are thrown ofif 

 the great rivers of China, Siam, and Burmah. On the west, however, it 

 has been completely established that a continuous chain extends beyond the 

 Indus along the north of the Oxus, and ends in that quarter about 68° E. long. 

 In like manner it is found that no separation can be established, except a 

 purely arbitrary one, between the Himalaya as commonly defined and the 

 greatly elevated and rugged table-land of Tibet ; nor between this last and 

 the mountain ranges which form its northern border along the low-lying 

 desert regions of central Asia. 



" It thus appears that the Himalaya, with its prolongation west of the 

 Indus, constitutes in reality the broad mountainous slope which descends 

 from the southern border of the great Tibetan table-land to the lower levels 

 of Hindustan and the plains of the Caspian ; and that a somewhat similar 

 mountain face, descending from the northern edge of the tableland, leads 

 to another great plain on the north, extending far to the eastward, to the 

 northern borders of China. Towards its northwest extremity this great 

 system is connected with other mountains — on the south, with those of 

 Afghanistan, of which the Hindu-Kush is the crest, occupying a breadth 

 of about 250 miles between Peshawur and Kunduz ; and on the north, with 

 the mountains that flank the Jaxartes or Sir on the north, and the Thian- 

 shan or Celestial Mountains. The eastern margin of Tibet descends to 

 western China, and the south-eastern termination of the Himalaya is fused 

 into the ranges which run north and south between the 95th and looth 

 meridians, and separate the rivers of Burmah, Siam, and western China. 



" Nor can any of the numerous mountain ranges which constitute this 

 great elevated region be properly regarded as having special, definite, or 

 separate existence apart from the general mass of which they are the com- 

 ponent parts ; and Tibet cannot be rightly described, as it has been, as 

 lying in the interval between the two so-called chains of the Himalaya and 

 the Kouenlun or Kara Koram. It is in truth the summit of a great pro- 

 tuberance above the general level of the earth's surface, of which these 

 alleged chains are nothing more than the south and north borders, while 

 the other ranges which traverse it are but corrugations of the mass more 

 or less strongly marked and locally developed. 



" The average level of the Tibetan tableland may be taken at about 

 15,000 feet above the sea. The loftiest points known on the earth's sur- 

 face are to be found along its southern or Himalayan boundary; one of them 

 falls very little short of 30,000 feet in elevation, and peaks of 20,000 feet 

 bound the entire chain. The plains of India which skirt the Himalayan 

 face of the tableland, for a length of rather more than 1,500 miles, along 

 the northern border of British India, nowhere rise so much as 1,000 feet 

 above the sea, the average being much less. The low lands on the north, 

 about Kashgar and Yarkend, have an elevation of from 3,000 to 4,000 feet, 

 and no part of the Central Asiatic desert seems to fall below 2,000 feet, 

 the lake of Lob-nor being somewhat above the level. The greatest dimen- 



