256 OBSERVATIONS ON THE 



but some of the points subtended an angle approaching to half a degree, 

 thus arguing an absolute height exceeding twenty-two thousand feet 

 free of snow. The outline was very steep and sharp, and the peaks of 

 a reddish colour, from a gravelly or sandstone structure, had a most deso- 

 late appearance. The contiguous level, though very lofty, was still rugged, 

 and where the surface of the country is more even, we may conclude a 

 greater altitude for the seat of perennial snow; and it would seem from 

 the oral accounts of the Ldmds, that the inward and still distant rano;es 

 confining upon the Tartaric plateaux, exhibit no snow that rests through- 

 out the year, not owing to any depression of the soil, but to the constant 

 shining out of the sun ; and it is no vague conjecture to entertain that 

 tracts of land will one day be discovered, where the abodes of mankind 

 and cultivation surpass in height the summits of the Andes, having 

 the winters of the Polar regions, without their snow, succeeded by the 

 summers of England. 



The peculiar aridity of the Intra Himalayan regions is a subject 

 connected with so many meteorological phenomena, and with so much 

 of the conveniences of life, that it seems to open a new field to the philoso- 

 pher. Things do not rot in Thibet, but crumble in long ages. There 

 are neither moisture nor insects to produce decomposition. Every thing- 

 desiccates, and, as it were, stands fixed : the process of decay is slow, and 

 superficial things gradually disappear in dust. Where there are no forest 

 trees, timber is of great value, but here it lasts for centuries, and the 

 roofs of the houses constructed of an argillaceous earth are actually 

 baked by the sun's rays, till they harden like the hanhar of the plains. 

 Where little rain or snow falls, there are few natural agents of destruc- 

 tion, and we see neglected Monasteries yielding slowly to time, each 

 winter eating away portions of the walls, while the timbers remain 

 unchanged. Ruins in Thibet are the records of far antiquity; books are 

 imperishable, for no insects attack them, and there is every probability 



