92 STEPPES AND DESERTS. 



(Asie Centrale, T. ii. p. 427 and 483, where I have followed 

 the text of Yuen-thong-ki, translated by my friend Stanislas 

 Julien.) The highest summit measured in the Hindu- 

 Coosh, north-west of Jellalabad, is 3164 toises above the 

 sea (20132 English feet) ; to the west, towards Herat, the 

 chain sinks to 400 toises (2558 English feet), until, north 

 of Teheran, it rises again to a height of 2295 toises (14675 

 English feet) in the volcano of Demavend. 



4. The mountain system of the Himalaya. The normal 

 direction of this system is east and west when followed from 

 81 to 97 E. long, from Greenwich, or through more than 

 fifteen degrees of longitude from the colossal Dhawalagiri 

 (4390 toises, 28071 English feet) to the breaking through 

 of the long-problematical Dzangbo-tschu river (the Irawaddy, 

 according to Dalrymple and Klaproth), and to the chains 

 running north and south which cover the whole of Western 

 China, and in the provinces of Sse-tschuan, Hu-kuang, and 

 Kuang-si form the great mountain group of the sources of 

 the Kiang. The next highest culminating point to the 

 Dhawalagiri, of this east and west part of the Himalaya, is 

 not, as has been hitherto supposed, the eastern peak of the 

 Schamalari, but the Kinchinjinga. This mountain is 

 situated in the meridian of Sikhim, between Bootan and 

 Nepaul, and between the Schamalari (3750 ? toises, 23980 

 English feet) and the Dhawalagiri : its height is 4406 toises, 

 or 26438 Parisian, or 28174 English feet. It was first 

 measured accurately by trigonometrical operations in the pre- 

 sent year, and as the account of this measurement received 

 by me from India says decidedly, " that a new determination 



