103 
J an. 11, 1858.] WAUGH ON MOUNTS EVEREST AND DEODANGA. 
in Thibet conducting the General Trigonometrical Survey operations 
beyond Kashmir. That officer’s opinion will be very valuable, and 
(D. Y.) shall be transmitted hereafter; in the mean time, encom- 
passed as we are by the confusion and embarrassments attending a 
military rebellion of unprecedented magnitude, I am unwilling to 
delay the transmission of the four reports hereto annexed ; these are so 
ably argued, and place the subject in so luminous a point of view, that 
it is unnecessary for me to add more than a few words in this place. 
Mr. Hodgson labours under a strong conviction that Mount 
Everest is identical with Deodanga ; and the ingenuity with which 
he advocates his view of the question seems to have carried the 
same conviction to the minds of others not conversant with the facts. 
It is easy to see how this fallacy originated in his mind. The 
Sketch Map published by him in the Journal of the Asiatic Society, 
December 1848, gives his idea of the configuration of that part of 
the Himalayas ; a more erroneous impression of the formation of the 
country was never formed ; he represents a solitary mountain 
occupying a vast tract. If this unity really existed, the identity of 
Mount Everest and Deodanga would indeed be indisputable, as it 
would rest in the fact of there being only one mountain within a 
given space ; this single mountain, however, is entirely imaginary. 
The range presents the appearance of a “ sierra ” with innumerable 
peaks and groups of peaks. Among these nine have been fixed by 
the General Trigonometrical Survey of India, and are marked XII 
to XXI in the chart accompanying Mr. Scott’s report. Besides 
these nine, several others are more or less partially visible, which 
we were unable to identify ; and those who have any experience in 
conducting geodetical operations in the Himalayas can harbour no 
doubt that many other peaks do exist which have been concealed 
from our view by intermediate ranges. It is well known to surveyors 
that among a number of peaks having various altitudes and distances, 
the highest point in appearance is not always the highest in reality, 
the ocular deception being caused by the increment in the earth’s 
curvature and decrement in the subtended angle caused by distance. 
The erroneous idea Mr. Hodgson has formed of the configuration 
of this mountain range is sufficiently proved by his sketch map 
already referred to. If further proof were necessary, it may be derived 
from the statement Mr. Hodgson has given of the opinion he com- 
municated to me when I returned from the expedition I made into 
Sikim in 1847. Having mentioned to him that I had seen from the 
confines of that province an enormous snow-mass lying in a north- 
westerly direction from Tonglo, he immediately pronounced it to be 
“ Deodanga.” Now the mountain I then saw was not Mount 
Everest, but No. XIII, which Major Sherwill has so well described 
