CV111 NOTES. 



I feel prepared to support on all occasions that, in the Himalaya, the limit 

 of perpetual snow is higher on the northern declivity towards Thibet, than 

 on the southern declivity towards India. My. Hutton changes the question 

 it issue ; for whilst he thinks he is attacking M. de Humboldt's view of the 

 phenomenon taken in its generality, he is really only combating an imaginary 

 point of difference. He tries to prove what we are quite willing to admit ; 

 namely, that, on particular mountains belonging to the Himalaya range, the 

 snow lies longer on the northern than on the southern declivity :" (compare 

 also Note 5). If the mean of the plateau of Thibet be 1800 toises 

 (11510 English feet), it may be justly compared with the lovely and fertile 

 Peruvian plateau of Caxamarca : but it would still be 1200 French, or about 

 1300 English, feet lower than the plateau of Bolivia round the lake of Titiaca, 

 and than the pavement of the streets of Potosi. Ladak, according to Vigne's 

 determination by means of the boiling point of water, is situated at an 

 altitude of 1563 toises (9994 English feet). Probably this is also about the 

 altitude of H'Lassa (Yul-sung), a monastic city, surrounded by vineyards, and 

 called by Chinese writers " the kingdom of joy." The vineyards may 

 possibly be situated in deep-cleft valleys. 



C 404 ) p. 331. Compare Dove, Meteorologische Vergleichung von Norda- 

 merika und Europa, in Schumacher's Jahrbuch fur 1841, S. 311, and his 

 Meteorologische Untersuchungen, S. 140. 



C 405 ) p. 331. The mean annual quantity of rain in Paris, from 1805 to 1822, 

 was, according to Arago, 18 inches 9 lines; in London (from 1812 to 1827), 

 according to Howard, 23 inches 4 lines ; and in Geneva, by a mean of 

 32 years, 28 inches and 8 lines. On the coast of Hindostan, the quantity of 

 rain is from 108 to 120 inches ; and in the island of Cuba, there fell, in 1821, 

 fully 133 inches. (The above quantities are in French measure, corresponding 

 in English inches to 20 inches at Paris; 24'9 in London; 30'5 at Geneva, 

 about 115 to 128 in Hindostan ; and 141 '7 in Cuba). On the distribution 

 of the annual fall of rain into the different seasons of the year in middle 

 -Europe, see the excellent observations of Gasparin, Schouw, and Bravais, ki 

 the Bibliotheque Universelle, T. xxxviii. p. 54 and 264 ; Tableau du Climat de 

 1'Italie, p. 76 ; and the Notes with which Martins has enriched his French 

 translation of Kaintz's Vorlesungen iiber Meteorologie (Leons de Meteoro- 

 logie), p. 142. 



C 106 ) p. 331. According to Boussingault (Economic rurale, T. ii. p. 693), 

 60 inches and 2 lines of rain fell, on the mean of the years 1833 and 1834, 

 at Marmato, in lat. 5 27', at an altitude of 731 toises (4674 E. feet), and 



