THE HIMALAYA RANGE. 81 



hundred miles to almost double that in their western 

 branch. Notwithstanding the enormous aggregate 

 height of the Himalaya with Mount Everest {Gauri- 

 sankar), its highest peak, towering 29,000 feet above 

 the sea level, it is not a,t all certain whether the Kara- 

 koram, or, according to native authority, the mighty 

 Muztakh range — for they look upon the former merely 

 as a separate ridge — reaching its greatest, yet known, 

 elevation, 28,250 feet, at K2 (survey symbol) recently 

 named " Godwin Austen," after its first surveyor — 

 be not the greater mass of mountains. Another 

 report has raised some doubt as to whether 

 " Mount Everest " be really the highest pomt in the 

 Hunalaya. At the June, 1884, meeting of the 

 Royal Geographical Society, Mr. W. W. Graham, who 

 explored that portion of the chain in September, 1883, 

 in the course of a very interesting lecture, stated that, 

 having reached the lower summit of Kabru, at least 

 23,700 feet above the sea, whence he had the most 

 glorious view, he and his Swiss guide, looking in a 

 north-westerly direction towards Mount Everest (which 

 was less than seventy miles distant from where they 

 stood, and perfectly clear and visible), distinctly 

 saw two loftier peaks some eighty to a hundred miles 

 further north, one rock, one snow, towering far above 

 the second and more distant range. It is to be hoped 



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