INTRODUCTION. 29 



not have attained to the height of that great Colossus of the 

 Andes, the Chimhorazo, whose height is twice that of Mount 

 ^tna; and we must pile the Righi, or Mount Athos, on the 

 summit of the Chimhorazo, in order to form a just estimate 

 of the elevation of the Dhawalagiri, the highest point of the 

 Himalaya. But although the mountains of India greatly sur- 

 pass the Cordilleras of South America hy their astonishing el- 

 evation (which, after heing long contested, has at last been 

 confirmed by accurate measurements), they can not, from their 

 geographical position, present the same inexhaustible variety 

 of phenomena by which the latter are characterized. The 

 impression produced by the grander aspects of nature does not 

 depend exclusively on height. The chain of the Himalaya is 

 placed far beyond the limits of the torrid zone, and scarcely is 

 a solitary palm-tree to be found in the beautiful valleys of 

 Kumaoun and Garhwal.* On the southern slope of the an- 

 cient Paropamisus, in the latitudes of 28^ and 34°, nature no 

 longer displays the same abundance of tree-ferns and arbores- 

 cent grasses, heliconias and orchideous plants, which in tropic- 



Thus Mont Blanc is 5646 feet below Chimborazo ; Chimhorazo, 3770 

 feet below the Sorata ; the Sorata, 549 feet below the Jawahir, and prob 

 ably about 2880 feet below the Dhawalagiri. According to a new 

 measurement of the Illimani, by Pentland, in 1838, the elevation of this 

 mountain is given at 23,868 feet, varying only 133 feet from the meas- 

 urement taken in 1827. The elevations have been given in this note 

 with minute exactness, as erroneous numbers have been introduced 

 into many maps and tables recently published, owing to incorrect re- 

 ductions of the measux'ements. 



[In the preceding note, taken from those appended to the Introduc- 

 tion in the French translation, rewritten by Humboldt himself, the 

 measurements are given in meters, but these have been convei'ted into 

 English feet, for the greater convenience of the general reader.] — Tr. 



* The absence of palms and tree-ferns on the temperate slopes of the 

 Himalaya is shown in Don's Flora Nepalensis, 1825, and in the remark- 

 able series of lithographs of WalUch's Flora Indica, whose catalogue 

 contains the enormous number of 7683 Himalaya species, almost all 

 phanerogamic plants, which have as yet been but imperfectly classified. 

 In Nepaul (lat. 26^° to 27^°) there has hitherto been observed only one 

 species of palm, Chamaerops martiana, Wall. {Plaidce Asiat., lib. iii., p 

 5, 211), which is found at the height of 5250 English feet above the level 

 of the sea, in the shady valley of Bunipa. The magnificent tree-fern, 

 Alsophila bmnoniaua, Wall, (of which a stem 48 feet long has been in 

 the possession of the British Museum since 1831), does not grow in Ne- 

 paul, but is found on the mountains of Silhet, to the northwest of Cal- 

 cutta, in lat. 24° 50'. The Nepaul fern, Paranema'cyathoides, Don, 

 formerly known as Sphaeroptera barbata, Wall. {Plantce Asiat., lib. i., 

 p. 42, 48). is, indeed, nearly related to Cyathea, a species of which I 

 have seen in the South American Missions of Caripe, measm-ing 33 feet 

 in height; this is not, however, properly speaking, a tree. 



