236 Baron Humboldt cm the Mountain-Chains and 



ejHinence, deserves a particular notice. At the point where 

 the Beloor-tag joins the right angle of the Mooz-tag, or tra- 

 verses as a vein this great system, the latter continues its- 

 course without interruption from cast to west, under the deno- 

 mination of Asferah-tag, to the south of the Sihon, towards Kho- 

 jand and Urateppeth, in Ferghana. This chain of Asferah, 

 which is covered witli perpetual snow, and is improperly called 

 the chain of Pamer, separates the sources of tlie Sihon ( Jaxartes) 

 from those of the Amoo (Oxus) ; it turns to the south-west, 

 nearly in the meridian of Khojand, and in this direction is 

 called, as far as near Samarkand, Ak-tag (" White or Snowy 

 Mountain"), or Al-botom. Farliicr to the west, on the smihng 

 and fertile banks of the Kohik, commences the great dip or 

 depression of land, comprehending Great Bucharia, the coun- 

 try of Maveralnahar, which is so low, and where the highly-cul- 

 tivated soil and the wealth of the towns attract periodically the 

 invasions of the people of Iran, Candahar, and Upper Mon- 

 golia ; but beyond the Caspian Sea, nearly in the same latitude, 

 and in the same direction as the Teen-shan, appears the 

 Caucasus, with its porphyritic and tracliytic rocks. One is in- 

 clined, therefore, to regard it as a continuation of the rent, 

 in the form of a vein, on which the Teen-shan rises in the east, 

 just as, to the west of the great group of the mountains of 

 Azerbaijan and Armenia, is observable, in Taurus, a continua- 

 tion of the action of the fissure of the Himalaya and the Hindu 

 Coosh. It is thus that, in a geognostic sense, the disjointed 

 members of the mountains of Western Asia, as Mr Hitter, in 

 his excellent View of Asia, calls them, connect themselves with 

 the forms of the land in the east. 



III. The System of the Kxcan-lun, or Koolkun, or Tartash- 

 davan, enters Khoten (Elechi *), where Hindu civilization and 

 the worship of Buddha penetrated 500 years before it reached 



• The position of Knoten is very incorrectly laid down in all the maps. 

 Its latitude, according to the astronomical observations of the Missionaries 

 Felix d'Arocha, Espinha, and Hallerstein, is 37° 0'; the longitude 35»52' W. 

 of Peking. This longitude determines the mean direction of the Kwan- 



