340 Lieutenant R. Strachey on the 



M. Jacquemont made his observations, " Sur le col de Kiou- 

 brong (entre les rivieres de Buspa et de Shipke ou de Lang 

 Zing Khampa), a 5581 metres (18,313 feet) de hauteur selon 

 le Capitaine Gerard, je me trouvai encore de beaucoup au- 

 dessous de la limite des neiges perpetuelles dans cette par- 

 tie de 1' Himalaya (lat. 31° 35', long. 76° 38')." " Je crois 

 pouvoir porter la hauteur des neiges permanentes dans cette 

 region de 1' Himalaya a 6000 metres'' (19,700 feet). — (^Asie 

 Centrale, t. iii., p. 304.) I will admit that M. Jacquemont's 

 estimate of the height of the snow-line on the southern face of 

 the range, is not such as to induce me to place implicit confi- 

 dence in this either ; but allowing for some little exaggera- 

 tion, there can be no room for doubting that the snow-line 

 must here recede nearly to 19,000 feet. 



Whether the result at which I have arrived, from what I 

 saw on the Juhar passes, be too little, or this too great, or 

 whether there may not be, in fact, a difference of elevation, 

 are matters of comparatively small importance. As I pur- 

 pose to point out hereafter, the chances of error in the de- 

 termination of great altitudes by single barometrical obser- 

 vations are very considerable, more particularly when, as is 

 most generally the case, there is no corresponding observa- 

 tion within 60 or 70 miles. All of these heights are deduced 

 from such observations, and eiTors of 150, or even 200 feet, 

 on either side of the truth, or differences of 300 or 400 feet, 

 may, I am satisfied, quite easily arise in the calculation. I 

 shall therefore continue to call the height of the snow-line at 

 the northern limit of the belt of perpetual snow 18,500 feet ; 

 not that I consider my own calculation as worthy of more con- 

 fidence than Captain Gerard's or M. Jacquemont's, but that 

 it is, in the present state of our knowledge, sufficiently ex- 

 act, and certainly not exaggei'ated. 



As the principal object of the present inquiry is the eleva- 

 tion of the snov.'-line in the Himalaya, T have, in the fore- 

 going observations, confined myself strictly to that region of 

 these mountains that I at first specified ; but it is not the 

 less important to notice the heights at which we find perpe- 

 tual snow still farther to the north. Captain Gerard, after 

 mentioning the Keoobrung pass, goes on to say, " In August 



