SUMMARY. STEPPES AND DESERTS. XIX 



Chinese literature a rich source of orographic knowledge. Gra- 

 dations of the High Lands. Gobi and its direction. Prohable mean 

 height of Thibet pp. 56-63. 



General review of the mountain systems of Asia. Meridian chains : 

 the Ural, which separates lower Europe from lower Asia or the 

 Scythian Europe of Pherccydes of Syros and Herodotus. Bolor, 

 Khingan, and the Chinese chains, which at the great bend of the 

 Thibetan and Assam-Burmese river, Dzangbo-tschu, stretch from 

 north to south. The meridian elevations alternate between the parallels 

 of 66 and 77 east long, from Cape Comorin to the Frozen Ocean, like 

 displaced veins. Thus the Ghauts, the Soliman chain, the Paralasa, 

 the Bolor, and the Ural follow from south to north. The Bolor gave 

 rise, among the ancients, to the idea respecting the Imaus, which Aga- 

 thodsemon considered to be prolonged northwards as far as the lowland 

 or basin of the lower Irtysch. Parallel chains, running east and west, 

 the Altai, Thian-schan with its active volcanos, which lie 1528 miles 

 from the frozen ocean at the mouth of the Obi, and 1512 from the Indian 

 Ocean at the mouth of the Ganges ; Kuen-lun, already recognized by 

 Eratosthenes, Marinus of Tyre, Ptolemy, and Cosmas Indicopleustes, 

 as the greatest axis of elevation in the Old World, between 35^ and 

 36 lat. in the direction of the diaphragm of Dicaearchus. Himalaya. 

 The Kuen-lun may be traced, when considered as an axis of elevation, 

 from the Chinese wall near Lung-tscheu, through the somewhat more 

 northerly chains of Nan-schan and Kilian-schan, through the mountain 

 node of the "Starry Sea," the Hindoo Gush (the Paropanisus and 

 Indian Caucasus of the ancients), and, lastly, through the chain of the 

 Demavend and Persian Elburz, as far as the Taurus in Lycia. Not 

 far from the intersection of the Kuen-lun by the Bolor, the corre- 

 sponding direction of the axes of elevation (inclining from east to west 

 in the Kuen-llin and Hindoo Cush, and on the other hand south-east 

 and north-west in the Himalaya) proves, that the Hindoo Cush is a 

 prolongation of the Kuen-lun, and not of the Himalaya which is asso- 

 ciated to the latter in the manner of a gang or vein. The point where 

 the Himalaya changes its direction, that is to say, where it leaves 

 its former east- westerly direction, lies not far from 81 east long. The 

 Djawahir is not, as has hitherto been supposed, the next in altitude to 

 the Dhawalagiri, which is the highest summit of the Himalaya ; for, 

 according to Joseph Hooker, this rank is due to a mountain lying in the 

 meridian of Sikhim between Butan and Nepaul, called the Kinchinjinga 

 or Kintschin-Dschunga. This mountain (Kinchinjinga) measured by 

 Col. Waugh, Director of the Trigonometrical Survey of India, has for its 

 western summitan altitude of 28^178 feet, and forits eastern 27,826 feet, 

 according to the Journal of the Asiatic Soc. of Bengal, November, 

 1848. The mountain, now considered higher than the Dhawalagiri, is 

 represented in the engraving to the title-page of Joseph Hooker's 

 splendid work, The Rhododendrons ofSikkim Himalaya, 1849. Deter- 

 mination of the snow-limits on the northern and southern slopes of the 

 Himalaya; the former lies in the mean about 3620 up to 4900 feet 

 higher. New statements of Hodgson. But for the remarkable distri- 



