Page:Charles von Hügel (1903 memoir).djvu/53



assume the habits of trout and even in taste come near to them.

Among the animals and plants brought home by Hügel numerous new species were found. Most of the new animals and many of the newly discovered species of plants were described by specialists. He himself described some of the most remarkable animals, for instance, the goat from Cashmere, Capra falconeri, and not a few of the plants which found their way into the annals of science under names which he gave.

In the year 1850 a detailed and solid article, entitled "The Basin of the Cabul River, and the Mountains between the Hindoo Khoosh and the Sutlej," was published by Hügel in the Memoirs of the Imperial Academy of Sciences of Vienna. In the first part of this article the author seeks to describe the physical conformation of the Cabul basin, and in particular to shew how the south-western declivity of the mightiest upheaval of Asia has shaped itself in its several component parts, and especially as regards its rivers and streams. In the second part of the article Hügel discusses the route of Alexander the Great, and states the result to which he has been led, in part by his historical studies, in part by his personal observations of the scene of the war in Afghanistan. He bestows particular care upon the investigation of the site of the best known of the Afghan towns which were called after Alexander the Great, the often mentioned Alexandria ad Paropamisadas. And if Hügel was not in a position to define the exact site on which this Alexandria stood, he nevertheless successfully refutes the then accepted identifications, and above all shows how the town in question could not, as was then maintained, have occupied the site of the present Cabul,