498 THE TKOnCAL WOliLD. 



the magnificently wooded region below. The highest of these Sikkim peaks is Kin- 

 chin jungu — tlie third, but until recently believed to be the first, in hight upon the 

 globe. It falls but a liundred feet below the Dipsang or Karkakoruin peak, and 

 about eight hundred below Gaurisanker, which the British have re-named Mount 

 Everest. Kinchin-junga rises to the altitude of 28,172 feet. Not only is its sunnnit 

 untrodden by man or beast, but nothing that breathes has ever mounted .so high into 

 the air. The condor, who in his flight looks down upon the dome of Chiraborazo, 

 never mounts to within thousands of feet of the hight of Kinchin-junga.* 



* Humboldt's statement that tlie condor flies higher than Chimborazo (21,420 feet) has been 

 questioned. But Orton lias seen numbers of tliem hovering at least a thousand feet above 

 Piehincha (10,000 feet), and does not doubt that they fly much higher. Muller, in his ascent of 

 Orizaba, saw falcons flying fully 18,000 feet high ; and it is affirmed that wild geese fly over the 

 peak of Kunchan-ghow (22,000 feet). There can be little doubt that the condor attains an eleva- 

 tion greater than any other bird, and that no other creature ever voluntarily ascends so higlk 



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