96 STEPPES AND DESERTS. 



and Mooicroft in the Thibetian plateau of Daba and the 

 Sacred Lakes, fine pastures and flourishing fields of corn, at 

 altitudes far exceeding the height of Mont Blanc. These 

 accounts were received in England with much incredulity, 

 and were met by doubts respecting the influence of refrac- 

 tion. I have shown the groundlessness of these doubts in 

 two memoirs (Sur les Montagues de Flnde), printed in the 

 Annales de Chimie et de Physique. The Tyrolese Jesuit, P. 

 Tiefen thaler, who in 1766 penetrated into the provinces of 

 Kemaun and Nepal, had already divined the importance of 

 the Dhawalagiri. We read on his map, "Montes Albi, 

 qui Indis Dolaghir, nive obsiti." Captain Webb always uses 

 the same name. Until the measurements of the Djawahir 

 (lat. 30 22', long, 79 58', altitude 4027 toises, or 25750 

 English feet) and of the Dhawalagiri (lat. 28 40', long. 83 

 21', altitude 4390? toises, 28072 English feet) were made 

 known in Europe, the Chimborazo (3350 toises, or 21421 

 English feet), according to my trigonometric measurement, 

 (Recueil d' Observations astronomiques, T. i. p. 73) was still 

 everywhere regarded as the highest summit on the surface of 

 the earth. The Himalaya now appeared, according as the 

 comparison was made with the Djawahir or the Dhawalagiri, 

 676 toises (4323 English feet), or 1040 toises (6650 

 English feet), higher than the Chimborazo. Pentland's 

 South American travels, in the years 1827 and 1838, fixed 

 attention (Annuaire du Bureau des Longitudes, 1830, 

 p. 320 and 323) on two snowy summits of Upper Peru, 

 east of the Lake of Titicaca, which were supposed to surpass 

 the height of the Chimborazo respectively by 598 and 403 



