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Show ANNOTATIO S AND ADDITIONS. 83 the height of Prague. Sir Alexander Burnes also assigns to that of Bokhara only an elevation of 1190 English feet. It is earnestly to be desired, that all doubt respecting the elevation of the plateaux of middle Asia, south of 45° of latitude, should finally be set at rest by direct barometric measurements, or by determinations of the boiling point of water made with more care than is usually given to them. All our calculations respecting the difference between the limits of perpetual snow, and the maximum elevation of vine cultivation in different climates, rest at present on too complex and uncertain elements. In order to rectify in the smallest space that which was said in the last edition of the pre ent work, relatively to the great mountain systems which intersect the interior of Asia, I subjoin the following general review. We begin wit.h the four parallel chains, which follow with tolerable regularity an east and west direction, and are connected with each other at a few detached points by transverse elevations. Differences of direction indicate, as in the Alps of Western Europe, a difference in the epoch of elevation. After the four parallel chains (the Altai, the Thian-schan, the Kuen-liin, and the Himalaya), we have to notice chains following the direction of meridians, viz. the Ural, the Bolor, the Khingan, and the Chinese chains, which, with the great bend of the Thibetian and AssamoBermesc Dzangbo-tschu, run north and south. The Ural divides a part of Europe but little elevated above the level of the sea from a part of Asia similarly circumstanced. The latter was called by Herodotus (ed Schweighaiiser, t. v. p. 204), and even as early as Pherecydes of Syros, a Scythian or Siberian Europe, including all the countries to the north of the Caspian and of the Iaxartes; in this view it would be a continuation of Europe "prolonged to the north of Asia." 1. The great mountain system of the Altai (the 11 gold mountains" of Menander of Byzantium, an historical writer who lived as early as the 7th century, the Alta'i-alin of the Moguls, and the K.in-schan of the Chinese), forms the southern boundary of the great Siberian lowlands; and running between 50° and 52~ 0 of north latitude, extends from the rich silver mines of the Snake Mountains, and the confluence of the Uba and the Irtysh, to the |