H 



NOTES TO INTRODUCTION. 



The botanical relations offer the most striking differences be- 

 tween the Tibetan table-land and the southern aspect of the 

 Himalayan chain. In the latter, the harvest (and the com 

 i« often cut green) extends to 1,560 t. only; the upper 

 ■woody limit, with tall oaks and Dewadaru firs, to 1,870 t., 

 low dwarf birches to 2,030 t. On the plateau, Capt. Ge- 

 rard saw pastures up to 2,660 1. ; cereals prosper up to 

 2,200 t., and eren to 9,900 1. ; tall birches to 2,200 t, ; un- 

 derwood, for fuel, to 2660 t., that is, 200 t. higher than the 

 eternal snow-line under the equator at Quito. It is most 

 desirable that travellers, accustomed to general views, 

 should re-determine the mean altitude of the Tibetan table- 

 land, which I assume to be 1,800 t., between the Himalaya 

 and Kuen-lUn, as also the relative glacial heights on the 

 northern and southern declivities. Hitherto estimates have 

 been often bonfuunded with actual measurements, and the 

 heights of some prominent peaks, with that of the table- 

 land wherefrom they rise (compare Carl Zimmermann's 

 acute hypsometric remarks in his " Geographical Analysis 

 of the Map of the Interior of Asia," 1841, p. 98). Mr. Lord 

 directs our attention to a contrast between the heights of 

 eternal snow on both declivities of the Himalaya and the 

 Apine chain, Hindoo Koosh. " In the latter," he says, 

 ** we find the table-land in the south, and the altitude of 

 the snow-line is consequently greater on the southern de- 

 clivity : the reverse of the Himalaya, which is bounded by 

 ■warm plains on the north, as the Hindoo Koosh is on the 

 south." However considerable the critical corrections that 

 may be required for these several details, it is still an in- 

 disputable fact, that the wonderful configuration of a por- 

 tion of the earth's surface in the interior of Asia allows to 

 the human race the possibility of propagation, food, fuel, 

 and colonization, at a height above the sea-level, which, in 

 almost every other district of both continents (excepting the 

 parched, snow-free Bolivia, where Pentland found the snow- 

 line under 160—17^° s. lat. at the mean height of 2,450 t, 

 in 1838,) is eternally covered with ice. The probable dif- 

 ferences of the north and south declivities of the Himalaya 

 range, in regard to the eternal snow-line, have been amply 

 ronrtrmed by the barometric measurements of Victor Jacque- 

 mont, who so early became the victim to his noble and un- 

 tiring zeal (vide his " Correspondance pendant son Voyage 

 dans I'Inde, 1833, torn. i. p. 299 ; and "Voyage dans I'lnde 

 })endant less ann*es 1828 i 1832, livr.23, pp. 290,296, 299). 

 " The eternal snows," says Jacquemont, " descend lower 

 on the southern than on the northern declivity of the Him- 

 alaya, and their limit constantly rises as we advance to the 

 north of the border-chain of India. On the Kionbrong peak, 

 4581 metres high (2863 t.), according to Captain Gerard, I 

 was still considerably beneath the limit of the eternal 

 snows, which in this part of the Himalaya I believed (cer- 

 lainly too great— Humboldt) to be at 6,000 metres = 3078 1." 

 The same traveller observes, that, to whatever height we 

 rise on the southern declivity, the climate retains the same 

 character, the same division of seasons, as in the plains of 

 India. " The summer solstice brings the same showers of 

 rain, which uninterruptedly last until the autumnal equi- 

 Box. Only at Kashmir, which I have found to be 5,350 

 Eng. ft. high," (=837 t., therefore nearly that of the cities 

 Merida and Popayan,) " begins a new and distinct climate." 

 —Jacquem. Corresp. tom. ii. pp. 58 and 74. Leopold von 

 Buch accurately remarks that the monsoons do not impel 

 the moist and warm sea-air of the Indian lowlands across 

 the Himalayan barrier to the tramontane Tibetan district 

 of Ladak and Lhassa. Carl von Htigel estimates the height 

 of the valley of Kashmir above the sea-level, from observa- 

 tions of the boiling point of water (Part ii. p. ISS, ant. ; 

 Journal of the Geog. Soc. vol. vi. p. 215) at 5,818 Eng. ft. 

 (= 910 t.). In this perfectly calm and almost tempest-free 

 nUley, under 34<^ 7' lat., the snow lies many feet deep from 

 December to March. 

 6 'p 5.)— See generally my " Esisai »ur la G^graphie 



des Plantes et Tableau Physique des Regions eqtJinoxiales,'' 

 1807, pp. 80—88 ; on the diurnal and nocturnal oscillations 

 of temperature in the ninth plate of my " Atlas g*og. et 

 phys. du nouveau Continent," and the tables to my work, 

 "De distributione geographica plantarum secundum coeli 

 tcmperiem et altitudinem montium," 1817, pp. 90—116; the 

 meteorological portion of my '♦ Asie centrale," tom, iii. pp. 

 212—214 ; lastly, the more recent and accurate account of 

 the height-decreasing temperature among the Andes in Bous- 

 singault's " M6moire sur laprofondeur A laquelle on trouve 

 la couche de temperature invariable sous les tropiqnes," 

 Ann. de Chimie et de Phys. 1833, tom. liii. pp. 225—247). 

 The essay last quoted contains the determination of the 

 height and mean temperature of 128 points, from the sea- 

 level to the declivity of Antisana, at 2,800 1. height, between 

 the aerial temperatures of 27^5 and l©? Cent. (= 8P5 and 

 350 Fahr.). 



7 (p. 6.)— "On the Kawi Language in the island of 

 Java, with an introduction on diversities in the structure of 

 language, and their influence on the mental development 

 of the human race, by William v. Humboldt," 1836, vol. i. 

 pp. 5—310, 



8 (p. 6,)— Respecting the proper Madhjadftya, vide Las- 

 sen's excellent Indische Alter thumskunde, vol. i. p, 92. The 

 Chinese term South Bahar Mo-kie^thi, meaning the part 

 lying south of the Ganges. — Vide Chy-Fa-Hian's Foe-kouc 

 hi, 1836, p. 256. Djambu-dwipa is entire India, sometimes 

 comprehending ooie of the four Buddhist continents. 



9 (p. 6.) — Schiller's Elegy, Der Spaziergang, or the 

 Walk, which first appeared in 1795, in the Horen :— 



Within his silent chamber, casting circles 

 Pregnant with pieaniug, sits the thoughtful sage — 

 Creative mind compelling new results : — 

 Testing the forces that inhere in matter, 

 Proving the magnet's wondrous hate and love, 

 Pursuing sound through the air, the ray of light 

 Through ether, still intent on finding laws 

 Amidst the incongruous in what seems chance, 

 Intent on making out the stable pole 

 Amidst the flight of mere phenomena. 



10 (p. 7,)— Arago's ocular micrometer, a happy improTe- 

 ment upon Rochon's prismatic or double-refraction microm- 

 eter, vide M. Mathieu's note in Delambre, " Hist, de I'Astr 

 au 18me siecle," 1827, p. 651. 



11 (p. 8.) — Cams on the Elementary Parts of the Osse- 

 ous tmdi Crustaceous Frame-work of Animals, 1821, p, 6. 



12 (p. 8.) — Plut in YJt, Alex, Magn. cap. rii. 



13 (p. 8.) — The melting-points of difficultly fusible sub- 

 stances usually assumed are too high. Mitscherlich's al- 

 ways accurate researches limit the melting-point of granite 

 tol,300OC. = 2,372CF. 



14 (p. 9.) — Louis Agassiz's classical work on fossil #shes, 

 "Recb. sur les Poissons fossiles," 1834, vol. i. p. 38; vol. 

 ii. pp. 3, 28, 34, Addit. p. 6. The entire species Aniblyp- 

 terus, Agass. nearly related to Palaeoniscus (Palaeothris- 

 sum), is buried beneath the Jura, in the old coal formatbn. 

 Scales, which, in single layers, are formed like teeth, and 

 are covered with enamel, from the Lepidoid family (Order 

 Ganoldes), belong, after Placo'ides, to the oldest forms of 

 fossil fishes, whose now living representatives are found in 

 two species, Bichir (Nile and Senegal) and Lepidosteus 

 (Ohio). 



15 (p. 10.) — Goethe's "Aphorismen Sber Naturwissen- 

 achaft" (Works, small edit. 1833^ vol. L. p. 155.) 



16 (p. 11.) — Arago's discovery in 1811 (Delambre, op. cit. 

 p. 652). 



17 (p. 12.) — Goethe's •' Aphoristisches fiber die Natur" 

 (op. cit. vol. L. p. 4). 



18 (p. 12.)— Pseudo-Plato, Alcib. ii. p. 148, ed, Stepb. ; 

 Plut. Iu»tituta laeoBica, p. 253, cdr UuUea. 



