456 SUMMARY OF THE CONTENTS. 



Hindu-Coosh (the Parapanisus and Indian Caucasus of the an- 

 cients), and through the chain of Demawend and the Persian 

 Elbourz, to Taurus in Lycia. Near the intersection of the Kuen- 

 liin and the Bolor, the correspondence of the direction of the axes 

 of elevation (east and west in the Kuen-llin and the Hindu-Coosh, 

 whereas that of the Himalaya is south-east and north-west) shows 

 that the Hindu-Coosh is a continuation of the Kuen-llin, and not 

 of the Himalaya. The point where the direction of the Himalaya 

 changes to south-east and north-west from having been east and 

 west, is about the 79th degree of east longitude from Paris (81 22' 

 . Greenwich). Next to the Dhawalagiri, it is not, as has been hitherto 

 supposed, the Jawahir which is the highest summit of the Himalaya ; 

 that rank belonging, according- to the most recent intelligence re- 

 ceived from Dr. Joseph Hooker, to a mountain situated between 

 Boutan and Nepaul in the meridian of Sikkim, the Kinchinjinga: 

 the western summit of this mountain, which has been measured 

 by Colonel Waugh, director of the trigonometrical survey of India, 

 is 28,178 feet, and its eastern summit 27,826 feet high, according 

 to the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Nov. 1848 : The 

 mountain which is now supposed to be higher than the Dhawalagiri 

 is figured on the frontispiece of the magnificent work of Joseph 

 Hooker, entitled " The Rhododendrons of Sikkim-Himalaya, 1849." 

 Determination of the lower limits of the snow-line on the north- 

 ern and southern declivities of the Himalaya ; its height being on 

 an average 3400 to 4600 French, or 3620 to 4900 English feet higher 

 on the northern face. New data on the subject from Hodgson. 

 Without this remarkable distribution of temperature in the upper 

 strata of the atmosphere, the mountain plains of Western Thibet 

 would be uninhabitable to the millions of human beings who now 

 dwell there , 8394 



The Hiong-nu, regarded by Deguignes and Johannes Mliller as a 

 tribe of Huns, appear rather to have been one of the widely scat- 

 tered tribes of the Turks of the Altai and Tang-nu mountains. The 

 Huns, whose name was known to Dionysius Perigetes, and who are 

 noticed by Ptolemy as Chuns (whence the later appellation of 

 Chunigard given to a country!), are a Finnish race of the Ural 



. mpuntains ]. w ^ ... . 94 95 



Figures of the sun and of animals, and other signs carved on rocks 

 in the Sierra Parime, as well as in North America, have often been 

 supposed to be writing 95 96 



Description of the cold mountain elevations between 11,000 and 13,000 

 (or 11,720 and 13,850 English) feet, which are distinguished by the 

 appellation of Paramos ; character of their vegetation . 96 98 



Notices of the two groups of mountains (Pacaraima Mountains, and 

 the Sierra de Chiquitos) which separate the three plains of the 

 Lower Orinoco, the Amazons, and the Rio de la Plata . 98 



