NOTES. cxlvii 



with all relations of geological direction, is, on grounds of " loxo dromismus," 

 opposed to these views. (Notice sur les Syst ernes de Montagnes, 1852, t. ii. 

 p. 667.) 



( 56S ) p. 415. Kosmos, Bd. iv. S. 382 (English edition, p. 338). 



( 569 ) p. 415. Compare Arago, "Sur la cause de la depression d'unc 

 grande partie de 1'Asie et sur le phenomene que les pentes les plus rapides des 

 chalnes de montagnes sont (ge'neralement) tourne'es vers la mer la plus voisine," 

 in his Astronomie populaire, t. iii. p. 1266 1274. 



( 57 ) p. 416. Klaproth, Asia polyglotta, p. 232; and Me'moires relatifs a 

 1'Asie (taken from the Chinese Encyclopedia published hy the orders of the 

 Emperor Kanghi in 1711), t. ii. p. 342; Humboldt, Asie Centrale, t. ii. p. 125 

 and 135143. 



( 571 ) p. 416. Pallas, Zoographia Eosso-Asiatica, 1811, p. 115. 



( 372 ) p. 417. Volcanic activity, instead of appearing in the Himalaya chain 

 which is nearer to the sea (some parts of it, between the colossal Kinchinjinga 

 and Schamalari, approach within 428 and 376 geogr. miles of the Bay of 

 Bengal), does not show itself until the third inland parallel chain, the Thian- 

 schan, almost four times as far; and it has there broken forth among very 

 peculiar circumstances of neighbouring depressions which have overthrown strata 

 and caused fissures. We know from the study, by Stanislas Julien, of Chinese 

 geographical works, that the Kuen-lun, the northern boundary of Thibet, the 

 Tsi-schi-schan of the Mongols, has, in the hill Schin-khieu, a hollow which 

 sends forth a constant flame. (Asie Centrale, t. ii. p. 427467 and 483.) 

 This phenomenon appears to be quite analogous to that of the Chimera of 

 Lycia, so often referred to, which has burnt for thousands of years (see above, 

 Note 375); it is not properly a volcano, but a "fire-spring," which diffuses to a 

 distance a sweet-smelling odour (derived from naphtha (?)). The Kuen-lun, 

 which Dr. Thomas Thomson, the learned botanist of Western Thibet (Flora 

 Indica, 1855, p. 253), treats (just as I have done in my Asie Centrale, t. i. 

 p. 127, and t. ii. p. 431) as a continuation of the Hindoo-Kho, with which the 

 Himalaya, coming from the south-east, meets and unites, approaches so near to 

 the last-mentioned chain at its western extremity, that my friend Adolph 

 Schlagintweit regards " the Kuen-lun and Himalaya, on the west of the Indus, 

 not as separate chains, but as forming one mass of mountains." (Report, No. IX., 

 of the Magnetic Survey in India, by Adolph Schlagintweit, 1856, p. 61.) 

 Throughout a distance which extends to 92 E. longitude, towards the " Starry 

 Sea " or Lake of the Kuen-lun, as we learn by detailed descriptions drawn up 

 in the seventh century under the dynasty of the Sui (Klaproth, Tableaux hist, 

 de 1'Asie, p. 204), forms an east and west parallel chain about 7| of latitude 



k 2 



