330 Prof. Struder on Bowlders. 



tain "will allow of being transferred, with sufficient accuracy for 

 our object, to the other, if we deduct about 3500 feet from the 

 Himalaya heights in comparison with the Alps- — which is about 

 the difference of the snow limits on the south slope of both ranges. 

 And what state of things do we find in the Indian Alps ? "It 

 is remarkable," says Ritter, " that there never has been any re- 

 port of a single glacier formation throughout Himalaya. The 

 sublime phenomenon of glaciers, which appear to have attained 

 their most perfect development in the European Alp-formation, 

 according to any observations hitherto made, never occurs in the 

 Himalayan Alp-region." Thus, at first sight we are cut off from any 

 comparison here and instead of immeasurable fields of ice, many 

 thousand feet thick, which we expected to see, we only meet with 

 snow on the peaks and caps in no greater, rather in smaller quan- 

 tities than on the Alps at their present heights. But a closer 

 view, points out another result, which may be pronounced almost 

 decisive of our question. With the elevation of the ground, all 

 the isothermal lines mount up rapidly in height. On the south 

 slope of the Himalaya, we meet with the extreme limit of culti- 

 vation at 9400 feet ; in the deep indented vallies of the interior, 

 it mounts up to 10,700 feet ; on the plateau land, to 12,800 feet ; 

 and on the interior table land of Thibet, which can be best com- 

 pared with the upraised lowland of the molasse region, the same 

 appears at 14,000 feet, whence it goes no higher. This eleva- 

 tion would correspond to perhaps 10,000 feet, in our latitude, or 

 to the heights of Diableret and Fitlis. Hence, a rise of ground, 

 even twice as great as that required by H. v. C, never appears to 

 produce the formation of such extraordinary glaciers as must be 

 assumed in order for the glacier to have formed the ice-piles of the 

 Rhone-valley, which at the Jura, must have mounted over the 

 valley-bottom about 2000 feet, and which must have extended 

 below to Soleure. We should arrive at still more striking con- 

 clusion, were we to apply the glaciers theory to the Scandinavian 

 blocks, and yet it is scarcely allowable to explain such similar ap- 

 pearances as occui: in North Germany and Switzerland, by two 

 altogether different theories. What if in the hill country, at the 

 foot of the glacierless Himalaya, the phenomenon of erratic block 

 should reappear ? Several accounts seems to estabhsh the fact 

 beyond a doubt. 



