1849.] On the Snow-line in the Himalaya. 303 



The doctrine that Capt. Hutton attacks as erroneous, undoubtedly 

 is so. But it is a doctrine that was never inculcated by any one. — Capt, 

 Hutton having misunderstood the true enunciation of a proposition, 

 reproduces it according to his own mistaken views, and then destroys 

 the phantom that he has raised. The fact that Captain Hutton saw to 

 be true was this,, that as a general rule, snow, sporadic, as well as perpe- 

 tual, will be found to lie at a lower level on the northern, than on the 

 southern aspect on any individual range in these or any other mountains. 

 In drawing his conclusions from this fact, the first error into which he 

 fell was to confound the north and south aspects of the individual 

 ridges, with the north and south aspects of the chain ; and he somewhat 

 complicates matters by neglecting to distinguish between snow and^er- 

 petual snoiv. These mistakes having been pointed out to him, he tried 

 to correct them, but still could not get over the terms north and south 

 declivity ; for he ends by assuming that they apply to the north and 

 south aspects of the Bissehir range, which he conceives to be * the true 

 Himalaya, the central or main line of snowy peaks.' Here he falls into 

 an error of logic no less flagrant than the former ; he restricts the term 

 1 Himalaya' to this range, which may or may not be central, for that has 

 nothing to do with the matter, and then assumes that this Himalaya of 

 his own, is the Himalaya of whose north and south declivities we speak, 

 when we repeat that the snow-line is at a greater elevation on the 

 northern than on the southern face of the chain.* 



carried more snow than the southern exposure." (No. 14. p. 275.) In his last 

 letter he says, " I have already acknowledged the faultiness of my first letter, in so 

 far as regards my having omitted to state in sufficiently distinct terms, that my 

 remarks referred to the actual northern and southern aspects of the true Himalaya 

 or central or main range of snowy peaks, and not to the aspects of secondary groups 

 and minor ranges." This ' true Himalaya' is the Bissehir range of which I have 

 often spoken. I say nothing of Capt. Hutton's views regarding perpetual snow, the 

 existence of which, as far as I can understand him, he appears to doubt. 



* The word ' Himalaya,' which to the natives of these mountains means only the 

 snowy peaks, is in the language of science applied to the whole chain, and in my 

 opinion properly. Any division of the chain into ' Himalaya,' or snowy ranges, and 

 '■ sub- Himalaya' ranges not snowy, such as has I believe been made, appears to me 

 objectionable, not only as unusual in the terminology of physical geography, and 

 therefore likely to lead to confusion such as that of which we have just had a specimen; 

 but as artificial and unnecessary, I repeat artificial , for in spite of the specious 



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