May 24, 1858.] 
LABOURS IN NORTHERN INDIA. 
303 
works, including those with which I have myself been connected, 
such as the volumes of the Geological and Geographical Societies, 
there has surely been no remissness in acknowledging the highly- 
important and original labours of several of these remarkable men. 
For my humble part in bearing testimony to the deserts of my 
countrymen, I refer you to several of my Anniversary Addresses, 
but particularly to that of 1852, when, after presenting the Gold 
Medal to Henry Strachey for his arduous services in completing a 
map of Western Tibet, I specially spoke of the successful explo- 
rations by my countrymen of “that part of Asia to which, as 
Englishmen, we attach deep interest, as constituting the northern 
frontier ef our Indian possessions, which geographers revere as the 
loftiest region of the earth, and which it has been the ambition of 
Humboldt through life to visit in person.” 
Nor need we go far back in scientific history to note that one of 
the greatest additions to the science of physical geography was 
made by our countrymen Hodgson, Herbert, Colebrooke, and 
others, who, despite the incredulity of European philosophers of 
mark, demonstrated that the Himalaya mountains were the loftiest 
in the world ! 
In here reverting to a few only of these men, let me remind 
you, that whilst Henry Strachey received our Gold Medal, his 
brother Richard justly obtained the admiration of geologists for his 
clear and faithful description of so large a range of the region on 
both sides of the Himalaya, including the territory of Kumaon. 
Most assuredly I never could be oblivious of the services of the 
man who had been the first to demonstrate the existence of Silurian 
rocks near the “Himalayan axis ! * I further endeavoured to bring 
to your mind’s eye the researches, in regions never before visited 
by European naturalists, of Joseph Hooker in Eastern Tibet, 
and of Thomson in Western Tibet, j* researches so well conducted 
in many branches of natural history, and particularly of botany, as 
to have won for them the admiration of all enlightened men. 
Again, did not geologists and geographers, with whom I have 
been acting, long ago recognise with gratitude the real merits of 
our Indian explorers, Cautley and Falconer, when they put forth 
their remarkable description of the wondrous fossils of the 
Sewalik hills ? — researches all the more striking and praiseworthy, 
since the authors not only defined a new range of elevations as 
* Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. vii. p. 292, and vol. x. p. 249. 
f Royal Geog. Soc., vol. xxii., President’s Address. 
