1859.] Itinerary in the district of Amherst, Tenasserim. 447 



this great water-shed. To the North East the above ranges sink 

 into a wild expanse of flat jungle, concealing the Thoungyeu, and 

 bounded by the distant Hills of Yahyn in the Shan territories. To 

 North and North West we looked along a chaos of mountain tops, 

 vanishing into distant haze, and forming in fact the great back bone 

 or range which contiuues from the Yomadoung of Burma proper ; 

 and to the West we traced the ridge we had traversed, and the 

 valleys of the Kyik and Teepoo Shanley. The whole of this vast 

 expanse was one sheet of jungle : one sea of thick umbrageous 

 forest : save where a land-slip here and there exposed a patch of 

 red soil on the mountain side, and where the grassy plateau of 

 Mooley-it itself lay smiling at our feet. These mountains are ut- 

 terly uninhabited, and except in one direction, [between Lampha 

 on the Houngthrau, and Myawadee on the Thoungyeu] never tra- 

 versed or visited by human being. The Karen hunters confine 

 themselves to the spurs next the Houngthrau — Mooley-it itself is a 

 place of pilgrimage, and beyond it, as far as the Thoungyeu river, 

 is an unknown blank. 



At 3 p. m. Ther. 68°. Water boiled at 199.6. Ther. at Moulmein 

 88°. Difference of altitude 7171 feet. The aneroid 23.105. Took 

 the bearings of the principal mountains, and a rough sketch of the 

 sublime view. Amused ourselves rolling huge stones dowu into the 

 abyss, and by sunset returned to our encampment. 



The boiling point in the above obervations was obtained from 

 repeated violent ebullitions and carefully noted. The Thermometer, 

 an instrument graduated to .04" was immersed in a tall narrow pot 

 up to as far nearly as the mercury would rise ; no lid, and steam 

 allowed ready egress. Finally the error of the Thermometer was fix- 

 ed from numerous observations made at Moulmein and at Amherst 

 (sea level). The Tables from which the results are worked, are 

 computed from formula given iu Bourne's Treatise on the Steam 

 Engine. 



In 1854-55, when trying the altitude of Mooley-it, I placed the 

 Thermometer in an open wide-mouthed pot, to the depth of about 

 five inches. The mercury had therefore to ascend a considerable 

 portion of tube exposed to the colder draughts of air. It did not 

 therefore rise to more than 198.8, which with a mean temperature 



3 m 2 



