ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 83 



the height of Prague. Sir Alexander Burnes also assigns to that 

 of Bokhara only an elevation of 1190 English feet. It is earnestly 

 to" be desired, that all doubt respecting the elevation of the plateaux 

 of middle Asia, south of 45 of latitude, should finally be set at 

 rest by direct barometric measurements, or by determinations of the 

 boiling point of water made with more care than is usually given to 

 them. All our calculations respecting the difference between the 

 limits of perpetual snow, and the maximum elevation of vine culti- 

 vation in different climates, rest at present on too complex and 

 uncertain elements. 



In order to rectify in the smallest space that which was said in 

 the last edition of the present work, relatively to the great mountain 

 systems which intersect the interior of Asia, I subjoin the following 

 general review. We begin with the four parallel chains, which 

 follow with tolerable regularity an east and west direction, and are 

 connected with each other at a few detached points by transverse 

 elevations. Differences of direction indicate, as in the Alps of 

 Western Europe, a difference in the epoch of elevation. After the 

 four parallel chains (the Altai, the Thian-schan, the Kuen-liin, and 

 the Himalaya), we have to notice chains following the direction of 

 meridians, viz. the Ural, the Bolor, the Khingan, and the Chinese 

 chains, which, with the great bend of the Thibetian and Assamo- 

 Bermese Dzangbo-tschu, run north and south. The Ural divides a 

 part of Europe but little elevated above the level of the sea from a 

 part of Asia similarly circumstanced. The latter was called by 

 Herodotus (ed. Schweighatiser, t. v. p. 204), and even as early as 

 Pherecydes of Syros, a Scythian or Siberian Europe, including all 

 the countries to the north of the Caspian and of the Jaxartes; in 

 this view it would be a continuation of Europe " prolonged to the 

 north of Asia." 



1. The great mountain system of the Altai (the "gold mount- 

 ains" of Menander of Byzantium, an historical wrjter who lived as 

 early as the 7th century, the Altai-alin of the Moguls, and the 

 Kin-schan of the Chinese), forms the southern boundary of the 

 great Siberian lowlands; and running between 50 and 52 J of 

 north latitude, extends from the rich. silver mines of the Snake 

 Mountains, and the confluence of the Uba and the Irtysh, to the 



