1849.] Remarks on the Snow Line in the Himalaya. 955 



servation were made ; — yet, while confidently pronouncing them to 

 be in error, — he ingenuously informs us that he never was in those 

 districts !* 



What then is the true value of his assertions and assumptions ? Does 

 he imagine that the scientific world will be content to accept his un- 

 supported ' ipse dixit' in preference to the actual observations of four 

 independent inquirers, each of whom is fully as competent as himself 

 to judge of what he sees ? — Did it never occur to him that, that 

 which may be locally true in one district is not necessarily true in 

 general when applied to the whole extent of the Himalayan range ? — 

 Into some such error did Werner fall when he regarded the geological 

 facts of a limited German district, as an epitome of the geology of the 

 entire globe ; and if men are wilfully determined to look no farther 

 than the length of their own noses, such errors must needs be frequent 

 and unavoidable. 



The first objection made to my views arises evidently from my 

 opponent's ignorance of the localities spoken of, — he, according to his 

 own acknowledgment in a note at p. 297 of the Journal above men- 

 tioned, distinctly stating that he never was there himself ! Yet he does 

 not hesitate to assume, that "the true Himalaya," of which I wrote, 

 was the Bissehir or Southern Snowy range. — Had he possessed any 

 personal knowledge of the country over which I had travelled, he 

 would have seen that all the Passes mentioned in my letters, were situ- 

 ated beyond that range and to the north of it, — while, since he ad- 

 mits that <{ the mountains on which perpetual (?) snow is found, all 

 lie between the 30th and 32nd degree of north latitude," — a glance at 

 his map would have shown him that the locality of my observations 

 is situated between 31 ° 30' and 32°, or as completely beyond the 

 Bissehir range, as his own locality is north of Kumaon. 



In regard to the mistakes into which I am stated to have fallen, in 

 confounding "the north and south aspects of the individual ridges 

 with the north and south aspects of the chain," — I have to observe 

 that the mistake is due rather to my readers than to myself, for in 

 stating that " dense forests and vegetation occur along the southern 



* Lieut. Strachey has quoted Captain Cunningham's remarks as confirmative of 

 his own opinions, but the latter gentleman, in a recent paper, appears to plead 

 " not guilty" — to the soft impeachment ! 



