334 Lieutenant R. Sti'achey on the 



Toises. English Feet. 

 Webb, .... 1954 or 12,500 



Colebrooke, 

 Hodgson, 

 A. Gerard, 

 Jacquemont, 



2032 ... 13,000 



2110 ... 13,500 



2080 ... 13,300 



1800 ... 11,500 



JFebb, Colebrooke, Hodgson. — Immediately before the list of 

 heights just given, M. Humboldt quotes the following part 

 of a letter from Mr Colebrooke : — " There is a paper of mine 

 in the Journal of the Royal Institution for 1819 (Vol. xvii., 

 No. 13), on the limit of snow. I deduced from the materials 

 which I had, that the limit of constant congelation was 13,000 

 feet, in the pai*allel of 31° according to Captain Hodgson's 

 information, and 13,500 feet at lat. 30° according to Captain 

 Webb's."* I am unable to refer to the paper here alluded 

 to, but a number of the Quarterly Journal of Science (t. vi.. 

 No. 11, pp. 51, 57) has come into my hands, in which is a 

 paper entitled, " Height of the Himalaya Mountains," signed 

 H. T. C, and evidently written by Mr Colebrooke. From 

 this I extract the following sentences : — " The limit of con- 

 gelation is specified by him (Captain Webb), where he states 

 the elevation of the spot at which the Gori river emerges 

 from the snow, viz., 11,543 feet. This observation, it may 

 be right to remark, is consonant enough to theory, which 

 would assign 11,400 for the boundary of congelation in lat. 

 30° 25'." Now, as Mr Colebrooke was not an orginal ob- 

 server, the way in which he talks of the limit of snow and 

 then of the limit of congelation, using them as synonymous 

 terms, would, independently of any other error into which 

 he may have fallen, afford strong grounds for our supposing 

 that he had no very precise ideas as to the meaning of the 

 expression, limit of snoiv. But all doubt on the subject 

 ceases when we learn " that the spot at which the Gori river 

 emerges from the snow" is neither more nor less than the 

 extremity of an immense glacier ; and when we see, as I 



MM. Uiigel and Vigne, as they do not refer to the region to which I confine 

 myself. 



* The numbers in M. Humboldt's list do no not agree with this ; they have 

 possibly been transposed by accident. 



