MOUNTAINS.
the sea, being a deduction from Mr Colebreok's cal culation, for the same mountain, of 1268 feet.
The following table exhibits the results of Mr Webb's corrected observations, of no less than twen ty-seven different peaks of the Himalaya range, as taken in the progress of his survey of Kamaon ; but, for the accuracy of which he candidly admits it would be impossible to vouch, under all the circum stances by which the observations were taken. They are, however, in all probability, not far from the truth : Since these trigonometrical deductions were made, Hatemetited Lieutenant (now Captain) Webb has had the good Observe. fortune to succeed in making several barometrical observations in the Nitee Pass, through which Moor croft had reached the plateau of Tartary. In his way thither, he reached nearly the base of those lofty peaks of the Himalaya which tower above the temple of Kedar-nath, whose altitudes are among those previously determined by triangulation, at a great distance, and seen under very small angles. He bad, however, at this place, the advantage of observing one of these peaks under an angle of 26° 15' 15" ; and this, he says, gave him a result that agreed as well as could be expected with the position and altitude he had formerly assigned to it. The temple itself, by the mean of five barometers, was found to be 11,897 feet above the level of Cal cutta, or about 12,000 above that of the sea, yet no snow lay near it the beginning of July.
Captain Webb next proceeded to Josimuth, near the commencement of the defile leading to the Nitee pass, where he met with one of the Civil servants of the East India Company proceeding on a mission to the frontier, with a view of opening a commercial intercourse with the Tartars. These subjects of China, however, declined all connection with us, and pushed forward picqueta of cavalry to guard the pass. This untoward circumstance did not deter Captain Webb from proceeding. On approaching the pass, he experienced the same difficulty of breath ing which occurred to Moorcroft ; and from the in fluence of which, he says, neither horses nor yaks are exempt. The natives call. it Bis-Kee-huiva, or the poisonous atmosphere ; and conceive it to be owing to the effluvia of certain flowers.
He found in the Pass a troop of Tartar cavalry, who, with some inhabitants of Deha, received him kindly, and consented to let him remain until an 643 Bin:math.
answer should be received from Ghertope respecting his farther progress, which, at the end of fifteen days, was a negative, or, which amounted to the same thing, a reference to the Viceroy of Lassa. He
bad been permitted, however, to proceed to the crest or highest ridge of the Nitee Ghent (which is at or near its farthest extremity), and to make his obser vations, which are exceedingly interesting and im portant. On the 21st August at three P. M., by the mean of four barometers, the mercury stood at 16,27 inches, the thermometer at 47° : on the same day and hour, and the two preceding and following days, the state of the barometer and thermometer at Dum dum, about 50 feet above the sea, by a journal of the weather kept by Colonel Hardwicke, was as fol lows : Aug. 19, barometer 29,46 inches. Ther. 88° From which the Nitee Ghaut above Dumdum must be 16,764 feet, and above the sea 16,814 feet. Yet, at this extraordinary elevation, not a vestige of snow appeared in the Ghaut, nor on the shoulder of the ridge on the left of the pass, which rose to the height of 300 feet above it,—from whence it would appear, that the lower point of congelation, on the northern or Tartarian side of the Himalaya, is not less than seventeen thousand feet ! From the crest of the Ghaut Captain Webb was able to perceive the line of the Sutlij winding through the plain to the westward, and to take the angle of depression, from which, and Moorcroft's distance (ge nerally found to be correct), he determined the ele vation of this lowest part of the table-land of Thibet to be 14,924 feet. The angle of depression was 1°, 28', 10", and the distance 151 British miles. Notwithstanding this enormous elevation of 15,000 feet, the banks of the Sutledge afford the finest pastures for myriads of quadrupeds ; and crops of a species of barley called Ooa, from which the natives make their bread, are annually produced. Nay more ; on the cheeks of the Nitee Pass plants were found that ripened their seed at the height of 17,000 feet. These singular anomalies, so utterly at variance with the theories of Humboldt, Leslie, Kirwan, and all European writers on the subject, can only be ex plained on the great radiation of heat from that vast extent of elevated land that rises out of central Asia like the boss of a shield, creating, as it were, a new atmosphere of its own. " As the heat," says the Baron de Humboldt, " of high regions of the atmo sphere depends on the radiation of the plains, it is conceived that, under the same geographical paral lel, one may not find in the system of transatlantic climates the isothermal lines of the same elevation above the level of the sea, as in the system of Eu ropean climates." For the same reason, the system will apply still less to the climates of central Asia.