33G Lieutenant R. Strachey on the 



snow is lowest on the outer Himalaya,'" (by which he means 

 the Bissehir range) ; " and here the continuous snow-beds 

 exposed to the south are about 15,000.* It is not impossible 

 that the height which M. Plumboldt gives refers to some 

 line of perpetual congelation on a number of different va- 

 rieties, of which Captain Gerard remarks, such as whei'e it 

 always freezes, freezes more than it thaws, freezes every 

 night, or finally, where the mean temperature is 32° Fahren- 

 heit. These, however interesting in their own way, are not 

 the snow-line. 



Jacquemont. — The height given by this traveller is fully 

 explained by the note that M. Humboldt adds, " Au nord de 

 Cursali et de Jumnautri ou la limite des neiges est horizon - 

 talementtrestranchee." {Jacq., Voi/. dans I' Tnde, -p. 99.) Now 

 M. Jacquemont visited Jamnotri in the middle of May, when 

 no doubt he found the snow-line, " tres tranchee,'' at 11,500 

 feet. I have already shewn that I found the same thing 

 myself at Pinduri, where the snow in the autumn had all 

 disappeared up to 15,000 feet or more. If his visit had been 

 made in January, he would probably have found the snow 

 below 8000 feet ; but this is not perpetual snow. 



These heights, therefore, must all be rejected ; nor can it 

 be considered at all surprising that any amount of mistake, 

 as to the height of the snow-line, should be made, as long as 

 travellers cannot distinguish snow from glacier ice, or look 

 for the boundary of perpetual snow at the beginning of the 

 spring. 



2. Nor/hern limit of the belt of jierpetual snow. — My own 

 observations on the snow-line in the northern part of the 

 chain were made in September 1848, on my way from Milam 



* Account of Koonawcbr, p. 159. It appears to me possible that the Gerards, 

 who knew as little of glaciers as Webb or Ilodgson, did not fall into a similar 

 mistake in their estin:atc of the height of the snow-line on the Bissehir range, 

 because there are no glaciers, or none of any size, on that face, owing to the 

 small height, less than 2000 feet, that the average line of summit rises above 

 the snow-line. This, however, is only conjecture, for though I am ratisfied that 

 glaciers do exist on the north face of that range, I have in vain endeavoured 

 to come to any conclusion as to the southern face. It may be proper to add 

 that I have never been there myself. 



