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THE PEAKS IN THE HIMALAYA 



This Article having been communicated to Col. Walker t 

 Superintendent of the Qrand Trigonometrical Survey 

 by the Honorary Secretary, elicited the following reply. 



Dehra Doon, l§th November 1865. 



My Dear Sir, 



I am obliged to you for forwarding for my perusal Robert 

 de Schlagintweit's paper, enumerating the snow peaks 

 hitherto measured in the Himalayas. Opinions will proba- 

 bly differ, as to the utility of the nomenclature therein 

 adopted, or indeed of any attempt to give names to moun- 

 tains, which the inhabitants of the surrounding regions 

 have not yet attempted to name. To some few of the most 

 prominent peaks, it may be convenient to give names ; but 

 as the process of selecting a suitable appellative is necessarily 

 arbitrary, there will be great differences of opinion, as to 

 the propriety of the selection. Thus, the highest known 

 mountain in the Himakyas was named Mount Everest by 

 the late Surveyor General, Sir Andrew Waugh, in honor of his 

 predecessor. It is the only mountain ta which our officers 

 have ventured to give a name, for, as a rule, we accept what 

 we find, and give nothing that is either doubtful, imaginary, 

 or fanciful. Yet, in the one instance in which we have 

 departed from our rule,we have not been universally followed. 

 No less an authority than Sir John Herschel, in the last 

 edition of his Physical Geography, refers to our Mount Everest 

 by the name of Deo Danra. 



Herr Schlagintweit has mistaken the object of the Roman 

 numerals which are employed in the paper I communicated 

 to the Journal of the Asiatic Society. It is not intended 

 that they shall never give place to other symbols. When 

 the regions in which the corresponding peaks stand shall 

 have been topographically surveyed, the total number of 

 peaks laid down will be tenfold greater than it is at present, 



