Geography of the Ilimalaijah Mounlaius. 19 



during the month in which the observation on the mountain 

 was made. 



Even where cotemporaneous observations are obtained, 

 have we ascertained that the alterations of atmospherical 

 pressure in any accessible part of the Himalayah and Calcutta 

 are cotemporaneous ? 



During the cold weather months in India, when the atmos- 

 phere all over the country is in a state of comparative tran- 

 quillity, and the barometer is said hardly to vary above ^th 

 of an inch at Calcutta, and that only at the usual diurnal pe- 

 riods of variation, perhaps a calculation respecting the eleva- 

 tion of any point in the northern part of the plain, or any 

 accessible point in the mountain belt, without any cotempo- 

 raneous observation, would give a more correct approxima- 

 tion than at another time of the year with one. 



Unfortunately, the greater elevations are inaccessible at 

 this time of the year, which, otherwise, might perhaps be 

 considered as the best for obtaining correct results. 



It were vain to attempt describing the enthusiasm and de- 

 light experienced by the admirers of nature on first entering 

 these districts with the invading army in the end of 1814. 



Inhabitants of the north, long exiled from the place of 

 their birth, and contending with the fiery atmosphere of the 

 tropical regions, can alone conceive the pleasure which many 

 derived from the approach to a northern climate, and the 

 gradual appearance of the features of a northern landscape, 

 which the pines, more than any other vegetable, contributed 

 to give to the wooded heights, while the streams were more 

 animated and cheerful, from their clearness, rapidity, and 

 pebbled beds, so different from the sluggish and muddy wa- 

 ters of the plains, their unvaried surface and monotonous pro- 

 ductions. 



To the more philosophical admirers of nature, the prospect 

 of an ascent from the alluvial depositions going on under the 

 eye in the river bed of the Ganges, through an unexplored 

 country, to the primeval summits, forming the southern 

 crest of the high table-land of Tartary, through all the gra- 

 dations between a tropical and a polar flora, promised objects 

 of still higher interest. 



