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Show A NOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 79 executed under the aus-pices of the Academy of St. Petersburgh by two distinguished savans, the astronomer George Fuss, and the botanist Bunge. In the year 1832 they accompanied the mission of Greek monks to Pekin, to establish there one of the magnetic stations recommended by me. The mean height of this part of Gobi does not amount, as had been too hastily inferred from the measurement of neighboring summits by the Jesuits Gerbillon and V erbiest, to from 7500 to 8000 French (8000 to 8500 English) feet, but only to little more than half that height, or barely 4000 French or 4264 English feet. Between Erghi, Durma and Scharaburguna, the ground is only 2400 French, or 2558 English feet above the level of the sea, or hardly 300 French (320 English) feet higher than the plateau of Madrid. Erghi is situated midway, in lat. 45° 31', long. 111° 26' E. from Greenwich. There is here a depression of more than 240 miles in breadth, in a SW. and NE. direction. An ancient Mogul tradition marks it as the bottom of a former inland sea. There are found in it reeds and saline plants, mostly of the same kinds as those on the low shores of the Caspian. In this central part of the desert there are small salt lakes, from which salt is carried to China. According to a singular opinion very prevalent among the Moguls, the ocean will one day return and establish its empire anew in Gobi. One is reminded of the Chinese tradition of the bitte:r lake, in the anterior of Siberia, mentioned by me in another work. (Humboldt, Asie Centrale, tom. ii. p. 141; Klaproth, Asia Polyglotta, p. 232.) The valley or basin of Kashmeer, so enthusiastically extolled by Bernier, and but too moderately praised by Victor Jacquemont, has also given occasion to great_bypsometric exaggerations. By a careful barometrical measurement, Jacquemont found the height of the Wulur Lake in the valley of Kashmeer, not far from the chief city Sirinagur, 836 toises, or 5346 English feet. Uncertain determinations by the boiling point of water gave Baron Carl von Hiigel a result. of 910, and Lieutenant Cunningham only 790 toises. (Compare my Asie Centrale, tom. iii. p. 310, with the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. x. 1841, p. 114.) Kashmeer-respecting which, in Germany particularly, so much interest has been felt, but the delightfulness of whose climate is considerably impaired by four month:;; of wiuter spow ip the :;;treets |
