300 On the Snow-line in the Himdlaya. [April, 



August 1819, and Moorcroft in June* and August 1811. The Niti 

 pass is notoriously the easiest of all the Garhwal and Kumaon passes, 

 and remains open long after those from Juhar, which I have described 

 above, have become impracticable ; and it is held to be a certain way of 

 escape from Tibet, by the Juharis, should a fall of snow more early 

 than usual stop their own passes, while they are to the north of the 

 Himalaya. It may therefore be fairly concluded that the snow-line 

 recedes considerably above the Niti pass, as it should do if my estimate 

 of its height be correct. 



Moorcroft. The passage quoted in support of this height is as 

 follows : — " Now Mr. Moorcroft had his tent covered two inches deep 

 (with snow) when close to Manasarowar and on the surface of the ground 

 it lay in greater quantities ; and if his elevation was 17,000 feetf we 

 have clear evidence that the climate of the table-land, notwithstanding 

 the increased heat from the reverberation of a bright sun, is equally as 

 cold as in the regions of eternal snow in the Himalayan chain, although 

 the country of the former exhibits no perpetual snow except at heights 

 of 18,000 and 19,000 feet." {Tours in the Himalaya, T. 1. p. 319). 

 The words are those of Dr. Gerard, who on his own authority thus 

 gives 18,000 or 19,000 feet as the elevation of the snow-line in the part 

 of Tibet near the Sutlej ; and this, as far as it goes, corroborates the 

 conclusion to which I have come. 



A. Gerard. In the absence of the books to which M. Humboldt 

 refers, I conclude that the height here given is that to which Capt. Gerard 

 supposed the snow receded on the ridge above Nako. But this is to 

 the North of the Sutlej, and therefore is not in the region to which I 

 have confined myself. In the "Account of Kunawar" however the fol- 

 lowing remark that is applicable, is to be found : — " In ascending the 

 Keoobrung pass, 18,313 feet high in July, no snow was found on the 

 road," (p. 159). This pass is situated on the water-shed of the Hima- 

 laya about 20 miles east of the great bend in the Sutlej, and about 8 

 miles to the south of that river ; it is on the northern limit of the belt 



* Not January, as is erroneously printed in the ' Asie Centrale' Vide, Asiatic 

 Researches, Vol. 12, pp. 417—494. 



f The elevation of Manasarowar, as M. Humboldt correctly conjectured, is about 

 15,200 feet only. 



