312 Lieutenant R. Strachey on the 



The doctrine that Captain Hutton attacks as erroneous 

 undoubtedly is so ; but it is a doctrine that was never incul- 

 cated by any one. Captain Hutton having misunderstood 

 the true enunciation of a proposition, reproduces it accord- 

 ing to his own mistaken views, and then destroys the phan- 

 tom that he has raised. The fact that Captain Hutton saw 

 to be true was this, that, as a general rule, snow, sporadic as 

 well as perpetual, will be found to lie at a lower level on the 

 northern than on the southern aspect, on any individual 

 range in these or any other mountains. In drawing his con- 

 clusions from this fact, the first error into which he fell was 

 to confound the north and south aspects of the individual ridges 

 with the north and south aspects of the chain; and he some- 

 what complicates matters by neglecting to distinguish between 

 sno7v and perpetual snow. These mistakes having been 

 pointed out to him, he tried to correct them, but still could 

 not get over the terms north and south declivity ; for he 

 ends by assuming that they apply to the north and south 

 aspects of the Bissehir range, which he conceives to be the 

 true " Himalaya," the central or main line of snowy peaks ! 

 Here he falls into an error of logic no less flagrant than the 

 former; he restricts the term "Himalaya" to this range, 

 which may or may not be central, for that has nothing to do 

 with the matter, and then assumes that this Himalaya of his 

 own, is the Himalaya of whose north and south declivities 

 we speak, when we repeat that the snow-line is at a greater 



down on the southern exposure of the Himalaya than it was found to do on the 

 northern as^Ject; you may, therefore, easily imagine my astonishment, when, 

 crossing the higher passes through Kunawar, Ilungrung, and Pitti, I found the 

 actual phenomena to be diametrically opposite to such a doctrine, and that the 

 northern slopes invariably carried more snow than the southern exposure." 

 (No. xiv., 275.) In his last letter he says, " 1 have already acknovi'ledged the 

 faultincss of my first letter, in so far as regards my having omitted to state, in 

 sufficiently distinct terms, that my remarks referred to the actual northern and 

 southern aspects of the true Himalaya, or central or main range of snowy 

 peaks, and not to the aspects of secondary groups and minor ranges." This 

 true Himalaya is the Bissehir range of which I have often spoken. I say no- 

 thing of Captain Hutton's views regarding perpetual snow, the existence of 

 which, as far as I can understand him, he appears to doubt. 



