1849.] On ike Snoiv-litie in the Himalaya. 301 



of perpetual snow, the ground between it and the Sutlej not being of 

 sufficient height to be permanently covered with snow. 



Jacquemont, The Keoobrung pass of Capt. Gerard, under a name 

 slightly changed, is the same as that from which M. Jacquemont made 

 his observations, " Sur le col de Kioubrong (entre les rivieres de Buspa 

 et de Shipke ou de Lang zing khampa) a 5581 metres (18,313 feet) de 

 hauteur selon le capitaine Gerard, je me trouvai encore de beaucoup au- 

 dessous de la limite der neiges perpetuelles dans cette partie de 1' Hima- 

 laya (lat. 31° 35', long. 76° 38')." " Je crois pouvoir porter la hauteur 

 des neiges permanentes dans cette region de 1' Himalaya a, 6000 metres 

 (19,700 feet,") (Asie Centrale, T. 3. p. 304). I will admit that M. 

 Jacquemont' s estimate of the height of the snow-line on the southern 

 face of the range, is not such as to induce me to place implicit confi- 

 dence in this either ; but allowing for some little exaggeration, there can 

 be no room for doubting that the snow-line must here recede nearly to 

 19,000 feet. 



Whether the result at which I have arrived from what I saw on the 

 Juhar passes be too little, or this too great, or whether there may not 

 be in fact a difference of elevation, are matters of comparatively small 

 importance. As I purpose to point out hereafter, the chances of error 

 in the determination of great altitudes by single Barometrical observa- 

 tions are very considerable, more particularly when as is most generally the 

 case, there is no corresponding observation within 60 or 70 miles. All 

 of these heights are deduced from such observations, and errors of 150 

 or even 200 feet on either side of the truth, or differences of 300 or 

 400 feet, may, I am satisfied, quite easily arise in the calculations. I 

 shall therefore continue to call the height of the snow-line at the North- 

 ern limit of the belt of perpetual snow, 18,500 feet; not that I con- 

 sider my own calculation as worthy of more confidence than Capt. 

 Gerard's, or M. Jacquemont' s, but that it is, in the present state of our 

 knowledge, sufficiently exact, and certainly not exaggerated. 



As the principal object of the present enquiry is the elevation of the 

 snow-line in the Himalaya I have in the foregoing observations con- 

 fined myself strictly to that region of these mountains that I at first 

 specified ; but it is not the less important to notice the heights at which 

 we find perpetual snow still further to the north. Capt. Gerard, after 

 mentioning the Keoobrung pass, goes on to say, " In August when I 



