DO STEPPES ASD DESERTS. 



schan is the only one in which no /summits have yet had 

 their elevation above the sea determined by measurement. 



3. The mountain system of the Kuen-liin (Kurkun or 

 Kulkun), if we include in it the Hindu-Coosh and its western 

 prolongation in the Persian Elbourz and Demavend, is, next 

 to the American Cordillera of the Andes, the longest line of 

 elevation on the surface of our planet. Where the north- 

 and -south chain of Bolor intersects the Kuen-liin at right 

 angles, the latter takes the name of the Thsung-ling (Onion 

 Mountains), which is also given to a part of the Bolor at the 

 eastern angle of intersection. The Kuen-liin, forming the 

 northern boundary of Thibet, runs very regularly in an east 

 and west direction, in the latitude of 36. In the meridian 

 of H'lassa an interruption takes place from the great moun- 

 tain knot which surrounds the alpine lake of Khuku-noor, 

 the Sing-so-hai, or Starry Sea, so celebrated in the mythical 

 geography of the Chinese. The somewhat more northerly 

 chains of Nan-schan and Kilian-schan. may almost be re- 

 garded as an easterly prolongation of the Thian-schan. 

 They extend to the Chinese wall near Liang-tscheu. West 

 of the intersection of the Bolor and Kuen-liin (the Thsung- 

 ling) I think I have been the first to shew (Asie Centrale, 

 T. i. p. 23, and 118-159 ; T. ii. p. 431-434 and 465) that 

 the corresponding direction of the axes of the Kuen-liin and 

 the Hindu-Coosh (both being east and west, whereas the 

 Himalaya is south-east and north-west) makes it reasonable 

 to regard the Hindu-Coosh as a continuation, not of the 

 Himalaya, but of the Kuen-liin. From the Taurus in Lycia 

 to Kafiristan, through an extent of 45 degrees of longitude, 



