Velocity of tile Wind. 
99 
cellent; but owing- to the great elevation the exhaustion and distress consequent on 
using the least exertion were so great that we were glad to mount our yaks, which 
however moved very slowly. ' We reached the pass about five p. m. and I almost 
feared at one time we should not arrive in time to have an observation of the baro- 
meter, which stood as follows : Inch. Attd. Th. Det. Th. 
Oct. 14. 5 P. m. 15. 820 34°. 24 
We were very unfortunate in our weather ; could see nothing but clouds, which in- 
deed completely enveloped us : excepting the Bhotiahs only one native reached the 
pass with . 
All the way from Kawalek we found nothing but varieties of quai*tz-rock and chert, 
with a small patch of clay-slate, the same in fact as I found at Uta Dhura*. 
We had no beds of snow to cross excepting some new snow, which had just fallen on 
the passf, about twelve or eighteen inches in thickness. I was surprised to find 
this pass so high, having understood 14 or 15000 feet to be the greatest elevation 
attained by Captain Webb in his journey. 
The people, however, say that he did not visit the pass ; so that liis elevation must 
relate to Kalapani, beyond which they say he did not proceed. I have not the ac- 
count to refer to; so must leave you to ascertain the matter correctly M 
Remarks by the Editor. 
The above observation of the barometer is to be corrected for the capillarity of 
the tube which was a small one. The value of the correction was determined by 
comparison with another barometer, which again was compared with the standard 
one in the Surveyor General’s Office. It was found to be ,281 inch additive 
to the instrument observed at the pass. Taking this corrected indication and the 
corresponding observation made in Calcutta, and published in the monthly register 
given in the Government Gazette, the elevation of the pass is found to be 16844 feet. 
Captain Webb’s result is 17598 ft. In the above calculation we have not attempted 
to correct for the hygrometric condition of the air. 
The writer of the foregoing letter has promised us his detailed journal of the ex- 
cursion, from which we hope to make some interesting extracts. 
III . — On the Velocity of the Wind. 
It is the object of the present article to invite the attention of the numerous 
scientific navigators, who are continually traversing the wide ocean between Europe 
and India, to a subject well suited to furnish them with amusement for the many 
leisure hours which such a voyage affords. 
Nothing can be less satisfactorily determined than the relation between the force 
and the velocity of the wind; the tables which are given thereof in works of physical 
science are almost entirely deduced from theory, and there is great reason to imagine, 
that they would not agree better with experiment than those of the resistance of 
fluids, for which new rules and theories have been frequently invented, founded up- 
on elaborate experiments and inquiries. It has been often said that a ship could “vie 
with the wind in swiftness,” but is not such an expression understood merely in a 
poetical sense, without the notion ever being considerately entertained that a ship 
could positively sail as fast as the wind. Aud yet there is nothing chimerical in 
such a supposition, and the facts which shall be presently stated, go far to prove, that 
with the wind on the beam a good sailer can even outstrip the subtle element in her 
course ; but as such a proposition will hardly be received as a fact without the con- 
* The pass in Jowahir at the head of the Garjia or Guri, the main stream and 
most distant source of the G4gra. 
t Compare this fact witli European speculations on the elevation of the line of 
perpetual congelation. Professor Leslie, and the Quarterly Reviewers fixed it at 10.500 
for the latitude of 30°, a statement which continues to be gravely copied into most 
works, without the slightest hint of its being contradicted by observation. See in 
particular Myer’s Geography. 
+ In the 6th ,voL Journal of Science and Arts, there is a table of Captain Webb’s 
results, and some particulars of this journey, from which we would infer that he did 
imt visit the pass; the height, however, is given in this table 17598 feet, we suppose 
from geometrical measurement.— E d. 
