ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 85 



the height of Prague. Sir Alexander Burnes also assigns 

 to that of Bokhara only an elevation of 1190 English 

 feet. It is earnestly to be desired, that all doubt respecting 

 the elevation of the plateaux of middle Asia, south of 45 

 of latitude, should finally be set at rest by direct barometric 

 measurements, or by determinations of the boiling point of 

 water made with more care than is usually given to them. 

 All our calculations respecting the difference between the 

 limits of perpetual snow, and the maximum elevation of vine 

 cultivation in different climates, rest at present on too 

 complex and uncertain elements. 



In order to rectify in the smallest space that which was 

 said in the last edition of the present work, relatively to the 

 great mountain systems which intersect the interior of 

 Asia, I subjoin the following general review. We begin 

 with the four parallel chains, which follow with tolerable 

 regularity an east and west direction, and are connected 

 with each other at a few detached points by transverse 

 elevations. Differences of direction indicate, as in the 

 Alps of western Europe, a difference in the epoch of eleva- 

 tion. After the four parallel chains (the Altai, the Thian- 

 schan, the Kuen-liin, and the Himalaya), we have to 

 notice chains following, the direction of meridians, viz. 

 the Ural, the Bolor, the Khingan, and the Chinese chains, 

 which, with the great bend of the Thibetian and Assamo- 

 Bermese Dzangbo-tschu, run north and south. The 

 Ural divides a part of Europe but little elevated above 

 the level of the sea from a part of Asia similarly circum- 

 stanced. The latter was called by Herodotus, (ed. Schweig- 



