ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 81 



Shawl-goat, and Schipke (1634 toises, 10,450 English feet); 

 those round Ladak, which have an elevation of 2100 toises, or 

 13,480 English feet, and must not be confounded with the depression 

 in which the town is situated; and lastly, the plateau of the Sacred 

 Lakes Manasa and Ravanahrada (probably 2345 toises), which was 

 visited so early as 1625, by Pater Antonio de Andrada. Other 

 parts are entirely filled with crowded, mountainous elevations, 

 "rising," as a recent traveller expresses it, "like the waves of a 

 vast ocean." Along the rivers, the Indus, the Sutlej, and the 

 Yaru-dzangbo-tschu, which was formerly regarded as identical with 

 the Brahma-putra, points have been measured which are only be- 

 tween 1050 and 1400 toises (6714 and 8952 English feet) above 

 the level of the sea; so also with respect to the Thibetian villages 

 of Pangi, Kunawur, Kelu, and Murung. (Humboldt, Asie Centrale, 

 t. iii. pp. 281-325.) From many carefully collected measurements 

 of elevation I think I may conclude that the plateau of Thibet, 

 between 73 and 85 E. long., does not reach a mean height of 

 1800 toises (11,510 English feet); this is hardly equal to the 

 height of the fertile plain of Caxamarca in Peru, and is 211 and 

 337 toises (1350 and 2154 English feet) less than the height of 

 the plateau of Titicaca, and the street pavement of the Upper Town 

 of Potosi (2137 toises, 13,665 English feet). 



That, outside of the Thibetian highlands and of the Gobi, the 

 boundaries of which have been defined above, there are in Asia, 

 between the parallels of 37 and 48, considerable depressions and 

 even true lowlands, where one boundless uninterrupted plateau was 

 formerly imagined to exist, is shown by the cultivation of plants 

 which cannot thrive without a certain degree of heat. An attentive 

 study of the travels of Marco Polo, in which the cultivation of the 

 vine and the production of cotton in northern latitudes are spoken 

 of, had long called the attention of the acute Klaproth to this point. 

 In a Chinese work, entitled "Information respecting the recently- 

 subdued Barbarians (Sin-kiang-wai-tan-ki-lio)," it is said, " the 

 country of Aksu, somewhat to the south of the Celestial Mountains 

 (the Thian-schan), near the rivers which form the great Tarim-gol, 

 produces grapes, pomegranates, and numberless other excellent 

 fruits; also cotton (Gossypium religiosum), which covers the fields 



