II. On the deflection of the plumb-line in India, caused by the attraction of the Himalayan Mountains
Since transmitting his Paper “On the deflection of the Plumb-line in India caused by the attraction of the Himalaya Mountains," the author has had the advantage of seeing the pages of Major R. Strachey’s work on the physical geography of the Himalayas, now passing through the press ; and being permitted to make use of them, he availed himself of the important information therein contained to add a postscript to his former communication. Major Strachey thinks that none of the numerous ranges commonly marked on maps of Thibet, have any special definite existence as mountain chains, apart from the general mass of the table-land; and that this country should not be considered to be as if in the interval between the two so-called chains of the Himalaya and Kouenlun, but that it is in reality the summit of a great protuberance, above the general level of the earth’s surface, of which the supposed Kouenlun and Himalaya are nothing more than the north and south faces, while the other ranges are but corrugations of the table-land more or less marked. The plains of India which skirt the foot of the table-land, to an extent of 1500 miles, nowhere have an elevation exceeding 1200 feet above the sea, the average being much less; and there is reason to think that the northern plateau of Yarkend and Khotan, like the country about Bukhara, lies at a very small elevation, probably not more than 1000 or 2000 feet above the sea, while on the borders of the Caspian the surface descends below the sea-level.