[footnote] *See my 'Second Memoire sur les Montagnes de Inde', in the
'Annales de Chemie et de Physique', t. xiv., p. 5-55; and 'Asie Centrale',
t. iii., p. 281-327. While the most learned and experienced travelers in
India, Colebrooke, Webb, and Hodgson, Victor Jacquemont, Fobes Royle, Carl
von Hugel, and Vigne, who have all personally examined the Himalaya range,
are agreed, regarding the greater elevation of the snow-line on the
Thibeta=ian side, the accuracy of this statement is called in question by
John Gerard, by the geognoist MacClelland, the editor of the 'Calcutta
Journal', and by Captain Thomas Hutton, assistant surveyor of the Agra
Division. The appearance of my work on Central Asia gave rise to a
rediscussion of this question. A recent number (vol. iv., January, 1844) of
MacClelland and Griffith's 'Calcutta Journal of Natural History' contains,
however, a very remarkable and decisive notice of the determination of the
snow-line in the Himalaya. Mr. Batten, of the Bengal service, writes as
follows from Camp Semulka, on the Cosillah River, Kumaon: "In the July,
1843, No. 14 of your valuable Journal of Natural History, which I have only
lately had the opportunity of seeing, I read Captain Hutton's paper on the
snow of the Himalayas, and as I differed almost entirely from the
conclusions so confidently drawn by that gentleman, I thought it right, for
the interest of scientific truth, to prepare some kind of answer; as
however, on a more attentive perusal, I find that you yourself appear
implicitly to adopt Captain Hutton's views, and actually use these words,
'We have long been conscious of the error here so well ppointed out by
Captain Hutton, 'in common with every one who has visited the Himalayas,' I
feel more inclined to address you, in the first instance, and to ask whether
you will publish a short reply which I meditate; and whether your not to
Captain Hutton's paper was written after your own full and careful
examination of the subject, or merely on a general kind of acquiscence with
the fact and opinions of your able contributor, who is so well known and
esteemed as a collector of scientific data? Now I am one who have visited
the Himalaya on the western side; I have crossed the Borendo or Booria Pass
into the Buspa Valley, in Lower Kanawar, returning into the Rewaien
Mountains of Ghurwal by the Koopin Pass; I have visited the source of the
Jumna at Jumnootree; and, moving eastward, the sources of the Kalee or
Mundaknee branch of the Ganges at Kadarnath; of the Bishnoo Gunga, or
Aluknunda, at Buddrinath and Mana; of the Pindur at the foot of the Great
Peak Nundidavi; of the Dhoulee branch of the Ganges, beyond Neetee, crossing
and recrossing the pass of that name into Thibet; of the Goree or great
branch of the Sardah, or Kalee, near Oonta Dhoora, beyond Melum.
Pages:
668
669
670
671
672
673
674
675
676
677
678
679
680
681
682
683
684
685
686
687
688
689
690
691
692