296 On the Snow-line in the Himalaya. [April, 



congelation was 13,000 feet in the parallel of 31°. according to Capt. 

 Hodgson's information, and 13,500 feet at Lat. 30°. according to Capt. 

 Webb's."* I am unable to refer to the paper here alluded to, but a 

 number of the Quarterly Journal of Science (T. 6, No. 11, pp. 51 — 57), 

 has come into my hands, in which is a paper entitled " height of the 

 Himalaya mountains," signed H. T. C, and evidently written by Mr. 

 Colebroke. From this I extract the following sentences : " The limit 

 of congelation is specified by him (Capt. "Webb), where he states the 

 elevation of the spot at which the Gori river emerges from the snow, 

 viz. 11,543 feet. This observation it may be right to remark is conso- 

 nant enough to theory which would assign 11,400 for the boundary of 

 congelation in Lat. 30° 25'." Now as Mr. Colebroke was not an 

 original observer, the way in which he talks of the limit of snow and 

 then of the limit of congelation, using them as synonomous terms, 

 would, independently of any other error into which he may have fallen, 

 afford strong grounds for our supposing that he had no very precise 

 ideas as to the meaning of the expression, limit of snow. But all doubt 

 on the subject ceases, when we learn that ' the spot at which the Gori 

 river emerges from the snow,' is neither more nor less than the extre- 

 mity of an immense glacier ; and when we see, as I have done, that at an 

 elevation not 150 feet less great, and within a mile of this spot said to be 

 at the limit of constant congelation, is situated Milam, one of the largest 

 villages in Kumaon, where crops of wheat, barley, buckwheat, and 

 mustard are regularly ripened every year ; and that no snow is to be 

 found in the neighbourhood in August or September at an elevation of 

 at least 16,000ffeet or 4,500 feet above the spot alluded to; it is 

 evident that Mr. Colebrooke either used the term limit of snow in a 

 sense very different from that now applied to it, or has been left alto- 

 gether in the dark, as to those facts on which alone an opinion of any 

 value could be formed. 



I am without any means of discovering whether Capts. Webb or 

 Hodgson ever published any distinct opinions as to the height of the snow- 

 line, but it appears probable that the information to which Mr. Cole- 



* The numbers in M. Humboldt's list do not agree with this ;they have possibly- 

 been transposed by accident. 



f I say 16,000 feet, as up to that height I am certain, but 18,000 is more pro- 

 bably the truth. 



