Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VIII.djvu/748

 730 HILTON HIMALAYA MOUNTAINS HI MOV William, an English painter, born in Lincoln, June 3, 1786, died Dec. 30, 1839. He studied at the royal academy, and early devo- ted himself to historical painting, in which he displayed a complete mastery of the human figure, and singularly graceful composition. In his choice of subjects, many of which are from classic mythology, he evinced true poetic feel- ing. One of his best works is " Una and the Lion entering the Cave of Corceca." He was a royal academician, and succeeded Fuseli as keeper of the academy. HIMALAYA MOUNTAINS (Sanskrit, hima, snow, and alaya, abode), a mountain chain of Asia, bordering upon India on the north, and sepa- rating it from Thibet. It is limited on the east by the Brahmapootra, and on the west by the Indus. Both these rivers, as well as the Ganges and the Sutlej, are now considered to spring from the snow fields of the Juwahir or Nanda Devi in the middle Himalaya, and those of the Kailasa in Thibet, to the north, between Ion. 80 and 82 E. and lat. 30 and 31 N. The configuration of the earth is such at this point, that from the N. W. foot of the Kailasa the Indus flows N. W. along an enlcosed valley, its deep-cut channel about 100 m. distant from the Himalaya to the south, until it passes through the chain about lat. 35 40' N., Ion. 74 40' E., and from that point descends S. to the Ara- bian sea. On the other hand, the Brahma- pootra (called at its origin the Dzang-bo-tzin or Sanpo) rises on the S. E. foot of the Kai- lasa, flows S. E. and E., then in lat. 27 45' K, Ion. 95 E., turns round the depressed hills on its right bank, and pursues its rapid and winding course to the bay of Bengal. Within the limits thus formed by nature the Himalaya measures in its curvings 2,000 m. in length, with a mean breadth of 180 m. The mighty ridges which rise above the plains of Thibet, and run parallel to the Himalaya from N. W. to S. E., compel both the Indus and Brahma- pootra to flow from the divide of the Kailasa in a direction conformable with the enclosing mountain walls, until the increasing stream of the Indus is turned southward by the spurs sent down into its bed by the Karakorum and Hindoo Koosh, while the accumulated and rapid waters of the Brahmapootra are also turned southward and westward by the snowy masses which rise abruptly on its left bank to the east and south, where the eastern Hima- laya terminates. The division of the chain into western, middle, and eastern Himalaya is founded upon like natural and obvious reasons. The western Himalaya is that portion drained by the five rivers of the Punjaub, from the In- dus on the west to the Sutlej on the east, their united waters being conveyed to the ocean by the former. The middle Himalaya is that por- tion which is drained by the Ganges, and lim- ited on the west by the mountain masses which overlook the left bank of the Sutlej, and in which the Jumna (Jumnotri) has its manifold sources, and on the east by the course of the Teesta in Sikkim. It comprises the territory of Nepaul. Finally, the eastern Himalaya is drained by the Brahmapootra, and is all com- prised within the little-explored country of Bhootan, from the wall of stupendous peaks which runs southward above the left bank of the Teesta, to where the Brahmapootra, under the local appellation of Dihong, enters Assam. The axis of this great mountain mass follows the line of watershed, and can by a careful in- spection of a good map be drawn from point to point, where the streams originate which flow from the Himalaya northward into the Indus, the Sutlej, and the Brahmapootra, and those which empty southward into these same rivers and the Ganges. The axis thus traced along the line of watershed will be found to be also the line of mean greatest elevation, al- though the highest peaks do not happen to be on the axis. The direction of the secondary chains is often perpendicular to the main chain, oftener oblique to it, and not unfre- quently parallel, while enclosing within the in- osculating ridges valleys of great length. This fact, and the height of the summits on so many of them, and the duration of the heavy snow with which they are mantled, have led local observers to confound these snowy ridges with the axis of the chain itself. The plains of In- dia at the E. extremity of the Himalaya are but little elevated above the level of the sea ; at the foot of the mountains they may be 350 ft. above this level in the meridian of Calcut- ta, and in the Punjaub toward the W. extrem- ity of the range the elevation may be 1,000 ft. From these plains the view of the mountains is for the greater part of the time obscured by the vapors falling upon the southern ridges; but after the cessation of the S. E. monsoons the snowy peaks are sometimes seen at a dis- tance of about 200 m., at an angle of elevation of only about 1 above a horizontal line. On approaching nearer to the chain, the distant peaks are lost to view behind the nearer wooded ones, and glimpses are rarely obtained that impress one with the vast magnitude and stupendous height of the chain. Dr. Joseph D. Hooker, author of " Himalayan Journals," distinguishes four parallel longitudinal belts of country in the structure of these mountains. The lowest on the S. side extends from the plains of India to regions where snow is met with in winter. It is from 60 to 100 m. in width, ranging it may be from 5,000 to 8,000 ft. mean elevation, with peaks 13,000 to 14,000 ft. high. The lower portions are tropical, the upper temperate. It is cut up by ravines, but is not particularly precipitous. Beyond this ranges the second or snowy belt, that of the highest peaks 40 to 50 m. broad, its surface rugged and precipitous, with summits rising frequently to 20,000, some to 25,000, and a few even to 28,- 000 ft. above the level of the sea. Some of the rivers flow in deep gorges across this belt, their beds not more than 3,000 ft. above the sea level. The mean elevation is probably un-