May 24 , 1858 .] 
ASIA. 
299 
ancient times have fed and supported the people who dwelt in the 
vast number of deserted cities. 
India — Himalaya , Karakorum , and Kuen Luen chains. —Resume of 
British Labours in India. — At our last Anniversary one of our Gold 
Medals was justly bestowed upon Colonel Waugh for surveying and 
laying down on maps a vast area of the Peninsula of India, and for 
determining that the Himalayan range, the loftiest mountains in 
the world, reached their culminating point in Mount Everest at the 
height of 29,002 feet, considerably to the west of the point hitherto 
supposed to be their summit. On the same occasion I spoke to 
you of the recent travels of the three brothers Schlagintweit, par- 
ticularly in Upper India, and the mountains to the north of it. 
Unhappily there is too much reason to believe, according to 
native report, that Adolphe Schlagintweit, who was left exploring 
in the countries beyond Ladak, and far to the north in the direc- 
tion of Yarkand, and from whom no letters have been received for 
more than a year, has fallen in an action with the Chinese, in their 
war against the people of Turkistan; the fruits of his enterprise 
being, it is feared, lost. As, however, the reports of the natives 
proved unreliable in the case of our excellent explorer Moorcroft, 
let us hope that Adolphe Schlagintweit may still be spared to bring 
home to us some knowledge of the Yarkand territory. 
The other brothers, Hermann and Robert, have now deposited at 
the India House their manuscript observations, numbering 43 large 
volumes, accompanied by maps indicating the distribution of their 
88 magnetic stations, numerous meteorological observations, in- 
cluding all those which they obtained from various officers of the 
Company, and the localities where their plants were collected. 
A considerable portion of their collection has indeed been already 
set up in the Museum of the India House, including transverse 
sections of trees, and facial casts of the people among whom 
they travelled, which, being taken from the living person of races 
little known, must be of value in ethnographical science. 
Geographers must desire to see the results of these labours pub- 
lished, not only as relates to terrestrial physics and magnetism, but 
specially by the production of a map, on which shall be laid down 
the northernmost of those explorations of which, on the authority of 
Humboldt, I spoke last year, and to which I now revert : for it is 
indeed unquestionable, that the Schlagintweits did proceed farther 
to the north and by east, in the meridian of Ladak, than any other 
European traveller. 
