STUDIES SUEVEYING 263 
of this exacting age is thought accomplished. I have 
gained great, though undeserved, credit here* and no little 
help, by measuring the heights of the mountains and keeping 
up a good meteorological register. The Surveyor- General, 
who spent last season here, would tell no one what he was 
after, and the poor people who had shown him much kind- 
ness are very much disgusted. I keep no secrets, and if I 
cannot (and do not wish to) measure with the accuracy of 
a Surveyor, I do so sufficiently accurately for all practical 
purposes and at a very little outlay of time. With a pocket 
sextant and compass, lent me by the Deputy Surveyor- 
General (Capt. Thuillier, a most excellent fellow), I worked 
out in two hours the height of Kinchin from this place and 
made it 28,000 feet. Sinchul I have worked barometrically 
with no trouble at all, and make it 8653. Tonglo Mr. 
Miiller and I have just worked out from the observations 
I took in May, and it is 10,009 feet. 
So also a little earlier : 
I have only seen the sun thrice this month so as to get 
observations. The time here was f of an hour out, and my 
watch which you gave me before I went with Eoss is the only 
good time-keeper here, so that all sorts of people send to me 
for the time. I spent one day furbishing up my surveying 
lore, so as to be ready for the Terrae iiicognitae, but I am 
wretchedly off for instruments. 
Thus the rainy summer months wore away in busy employ- 
ment, with alternate hopes and fears about the great journey 
to the snows in October. His plan, if this were permitted, 
was to spend a month there, and then, if at all successful, 
return again in May, 
for I am sure [he writes on August 80] it will be better to work 
one part of the Himalaya well, from the Terai up to the 
Snow, than to proceed north-west towards the passes west 
of Nepaul, now so much better known [accepting the invita- 
tion of Major Thoresby, the Nepaulese Eesident]. This, too, 
is the middle of the range, it contains the highest mountain, 
and so evidently differs in the Geographical Distribution of 
its Vegetation, from what lies East and West, that it presents 
