Paul Severing - "Marvels of Modern Science"

Thornton W. Burgess - "Old Mother West Wind"

John Lothrop Motley - "History of the United Netherlands, 1587"

John Lothrop Motley - "The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1570 72"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: Himalayan Journals (Complete)

J >> J. D. Hooker >> Himalayan Journals (Complete)




_c._--Soluble in water, gr. 1.26 per cent., consisting of soda,
muriatic acid, organic matter, and silica.

The soil from which this example was taken was twelve inches deep; it
abounded to the eye in vegetable matter, and was siliceous to the
touch. There were no traces of phosphates or of animal matter, and
doubtful traces of lime and potash. The subsoil of clay gave only 5.7
per cent. of water, and 5.55 of organic matter. The above analysis
was conducted during the rainy month of September, and the sample is
an average one of the surface-soil at 6000 to 10,000 feet. There is,
I think, little difference anywhere in the soils at this elevation,
except where the rock is remarkably micaceous, or where veins of
felspathic granite, by their decomposition, give rise to small beds
of kaolin.



APPENDIX D.

(Vol. i., chapter ii.)

AN AURORA SEEN FROM BAROON ON THE EAST BANK OF THE S0ANE RIVER.

Lat. 24 degrees 52 minutes N.; Long. 84 degrees 22 minutes E.;
Alt. 345 feet.

TheE following appearances are as noted in my journal at the time.
They so entirely resembled auroral beams, that I had no hesitation in
pronouncing them at the time to be such. This opinion has, however,
been dissented from by some meteorologists, who consider that certain
facts connected with the geographical distribution of auroras (if I
may use the term), are opposed to it. I am well aware of the force of
these arguments, which I shall not attempt to controvert; but for the
information of those who may be interested in the matter, I may
remark, that I am very familiar with the Aurora borealis in the
northern temperate zone, and during the Antarctic expedition was in
the habit of recording in the log-book the appearance presented by
the Aurora australis. The late Mr. Williams, Mr. Haddon, and Mr.
Theobald, who were also witnesses of the appearances on this
occasion, considered it a brilliant display of the aurora.

_Feb. 14th,_ 9 p.m.--Bax. Corr. 29.751; temp. 62 degrees;
D.P. 41.0 degrees; calm, sky clear; moon three-quarters full,
and bright.

Observed about thirty lancet beams rising in the north-west from a
low luminous arch, whose extremes bore W. 20 degrees S., and N. 50
degrees E.; altitude of upper limb of arch 20 degrees, of the lower
8 degrees. The beams crossed the zenith, and converged towards S. 15
degrees E. The extremity of the largest was forked, and extended to
25 degrees above the horizon in the S.E. by S. quarter. The extremity
of the centre one bore S. 50 degrees E., and was 45 degrees above the
horizon. The western beams approached nearest the southern horizon.
All the beams moved and flashed slowly, occasionally splitting and
forking, fading and brightening; they were brightly defined, though
the milky way and zodiacal light could not be discerned, and the
stars and planets, though clearly discernible, were very pale.

At 10 p.m., the luminous appearance was more diffused; upper limb of
the arch less defined; no beams crossed the zenith; but occasionally
beams appeared there and faded away.

Between 10 and 11, the beams continued to move and replace one
another, as usual in auroras, but disappeared from the south-east
quarter, and became broader in the northern hemisphere; the longest
beams were near the north and north-east horizon.

At half-past 10, a dark belt, 4 degrees broad, appeared in the
luminous arch, bearing from N. 55 degrees W. to N. 10 degrees W.; its
upper limb was 10 degrees above the horizon: it then gradually
dilated, and thus appeared to break up the arch. This appeared to be
the commencement of the dispersion of the phenomenon.

At 10.50 p.m. the dark band had increased so much in breadth that the
arch was broken up in the north-west, and no beams appeared there.
Eighteen linear beams rose from the eastern part of the arch, and
bore from north to N. 20 degrees E.

Towards 11 p.m., the dark band appeared to have replaced the luminous
arch; the beams were all but gone, a few fragments appearing in the
N.E. A southerly wind sprang up, and a diffused light extended along
the horizon.

At midnight, I saw two faint beams to the north-east, and two well
defined parallel ones in the south-west.


APPENDIX E.

PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SIKKIM HIMALAYA, EAST NEPAL,
AND ADJACENT PROVINCES OF TIBET.

Sikkim is included in a section of the Himalaya, about sixty miles
broad from east to west, where it is bounded respectively by the
mountain states of Bhotan and Nepal. Its southern limits are easily
defined, for the mountains rise abruptly from the plains of Bengal,
as spurs of 6000 to 10,000 feet high, densely clothed with forest to
their summits. The northern and north-eastern frontier of Sikkim is
beyond the region of much rain, and is not a natural, but a political
line, drawn between that country and Tibet. Sikkim lies nearly due
north of Calcutta, and only four hundred miles from the Bay of
Bengal; its latitude being 26 degrees 40 minutes to 28 degrees N.,
and longitude 88 degrees to 89 degrees E.

The main features of Sikkim are Kinchinjunga, the loftiest hitherto
measured mountain, which lies to its north-west, and rises 28,178
feet above the level of the sea; and the Teesta river, which flows
throughout the length of the country, and has a course of upwards of
ninety miles in a straight line. Almost all the sources of the Teesta
are included in Sikkim; and except some comparatively insignificant
streams draining the outermost ranges, there are no rivers in this
country but itself and its feeders, which occupy the largest of the
Himalayan valleys between the Tambur in East Nepal, and the Machoo in
Western Bhotan.

An immense spur, sixty miles long, stretches south from Kinchin to
the plains of India; it is called Singalelah, and separates Sikkim
from East Nepal; the waters from its west flank flow into the Tambur,
and those from the east into the Great Rungeet, a feeder of the
Teesta. Between these two latter rivers is a second spur from
Kinchinjunga, terminating in Tendong.

The eastern boundary of Sikkim, separating it from Bhotan, is formed
for the greater part by the Chola range, which stretches south from
the immense mountain of Donkia, 23,176 feet high, situated fifty
miles E.N.E. of Kinchinjunga: where the frontier approaches the
plains of India, the boundary line follows the course of the Teesta,
and of the Rinkpo, one of its feeders, flowing from the Chola range.
This range is much more lofty than that of Singalelah, and the
drainage from its eastern flank is into the Machoo river, the upper
part of whose course is in Tibet, and the lower in Bhotan.

The Donkia mountain, though 4000 feet lower than Kinchin, is the
culminant point of a much more extensive and elevated mountain mass.
It throws off an immense spur from its north-west face, which runs
west, and then south-west, to Kinchin, forming the watershed of all
the remote sources of the Teesta. This spur has a mean elevation of
18,000 to 19,000 feet, and several of its peaks (of which Chomiomo is
one) rise much higher. The northern boundary of Sikkim is not drawn
along this, but runs due west from Donkia, following a shorter, but
stupendous spur, called Kinchinjhow; whence it crosses the Teesta to
Chomiomo, and is continued onwards to Kinchinjunga.

Though the great spur connecting Donkia with Kinchin is in Tibet, and
bounds the waters that flow directly south into the Teesta, it is far
from the true Himalayan axis, for the rivers that rise on its
northern slope do not run into the valley of the Tsampu, or Tibetan
Burrampooter, but into the Arun of Nepal, which rises to the north of
Donkia, and flows south-west for many miles in Tibet, before entering
Nepal and flowing south to the Ganges.

Sikkim, thus circumscribed, consists of a mass of mountainous spurs,
forest-clad up to 12,000 feet; there are no flat valleys or plains in
the whole country, no lakes or precipices of any consequence below
that elevation, and few or no bare slopes, though the latter are
uniformly steep. The aspect of Sikkim can only be understood by a
reference to its climate and vegetation, and I shall therefore take
these together, and endeavour, by connecting these phenomena, to give
an intelligible view of the main features of the whole country.*
[This I did with reference especially to the cultivation of
Rhododendrons, in a paper which the Horticultural Society of London
did me the honour of printing. Quarterly Journ. of Hort. Soc., vol.
vii., p. 82.]

The greater part of the country between Sikkim and the sea is a dead
level, occupied by the delta of the Ganges and Burrampooter, above
which the slope is so gradual to the base of the mountains, that the
surface of the plain from which the Himalayas immediately rise is
only 300 feet above the sea. The most obvious effect of this position
is, that the prevailing southerly wind reaches the first range of
hills, loaded with vapour. The same current, when deflected easterly
to Bhotan, or westerly to Nepal and the north-west Himalaya, is
intercepted and drained of much moisture, by the Khasia and Garrow
mountains (south of Assam and the Burrampooter) in the former case,
and the Rajmahal hills (south of the Ganges) in the latter. Sikkim is
hence the dampest region of the whole Himalaya.

Viewed from a distance on the plains of India, Sikkim presents the
appearance--common to all mountainous countries--of consecutive
parallel ridges, running east and west: these are all wooded, and
backed by a beautiful range of snowy peaks, with occasional breaks in
the foremost ranges, through which the rivers debouch. Any view of
the Himalaya, especially at a sufficient distance for the remote
snowy peaks to be seen overtopping the outer ridges, is, however,
rare, from the constant deposition of vapours over the forest-clad
ranges during the greater part of the year, and the haziness of the
dry atmosphere of the plains in the winter months. At the end of the
rains, when the south-east monsoon has ceased to blow with constancy,
views are obtained, sometimes from a distance of nearly two hundred
miles. From the plains, the highest peaks subtend so small an angle,
that they appear like white specks very low on the horizon, tipping
the black lower and outer wooded ranges, which always rise out of a
belt of haze, and from the density, probably, of the lower strata of
atmosphere, are never seen to rest on the visible horizon.
The remarkable lowness on the horizon of the whole stupendous mass is
always a disappointing feature to the new comer, who expects to see
dazzling peaks towering in the air. Approaching nearer, the snowy
mountains sink behind the wooded ones, long before the latter have
assumed gigantic proportions; and when they do so, they appear a
sombre, lurid grey-green mass of vegetation, with no brightness or
variation of colour. There is no break in this forest caused by rock,
precipices, or cultivation; some spurs project nearer, and some
valleys appear to retire further into the heart of the foremost great
chain that shuts out all the country beyond.

From Dorjiling the appearance of parallel ridges is found to be
deceptive, and due to the inosculating spurs of long tortuous ranges
that ran north and south throughout the whole length of Sikkim,
dividing deep wooded valleys, which form the beds of large rivers.
The snowy peaks here look like a long east and west range of
mountains, at an average distance of thirty or forty miles.
Advancing into the country, this appearance proves equally deceptive,
and the snowy range is resolved into isolated peaks, situated on the
meridional ridges; their snow-clad spurs, projecting east and west,
cross one another, and being uniformly white, appear to connect the
peaks into one grand unbroken range. The rivers, instead of having
their origin in the snowy mountains, rise far beyond them; many of
their sources are upwards of one hundred miles in a straight line
from the plains, in a very curious country, loftier by far in mean
elevation than the meridional ridges which run south from it, yet
comparatively bare of snow. This rearward part of the mountain region
is Tibet, where all the Sikkim, Nepal, and Bhotan rivers rise as
small streams, increasing in size as they receive the drainage from
the snowed parts of the ridges that bound them in their courses.
Their banks, between 8000 and 14,000 feet, are generally clothed with
rhododendrons, sometimes to the almost total exclusion of other woody
vegetation, especially near the snowy mountains--a cool temperature
and great humidity being the most favourable conditions for the
luxuriant growth of this genus.

The source of this humidity is the southerly or sea wind which blows
steadily from May till October in Sikkim, and prevails throughout the
rest of the year, if not as the monsoon properly so called, as a
current from the moist atmosphere above the Gangetic delta.
This rushes north to the rarefied regions of Sikkim, up the great
valleys, and does not appear materially disturbed by the north-
west wind, which blows during the afternoons of the winter months
over the plains, and along the flanks of the outer range, and is a
dry surface current, due to the diurnal heating of the soil. When it
is considered that this wind, after passing lofty mountains on the
outer range, has to traverse eighty or one hundred miles of alps
before it has watered all the forest region, it will be evident that
its moisture must be expended before it reaches Tibet.

Let the figures in the accompanying woodcut, the one on the true
scale, the other with the heights exaggerated, represent two of these
long meridional ridges, from the watershed to the plains of India,
following in this instance the course of the Teesta river, from its
source at 19,000 feet to where it debouches from the Himalaya at 300.
The lower rugged outline represents one meridional ridge, with all
its most prominent peaks (whether exactly or not on the line of
section); the upper represents the parallel ridge of Singalelah
(D.E.P.), of greater mean elevation, further west, introduced to show
the maximum elevation of the Sikkim mountains, Kinchinjunga (28,178
feet), being represented on it. A deep valley is interposed between
these two ridges, with a feeder of the Teesta in it (the Great
Rungeet), which runs south from Kinchin, and turning west enters the
Teesta at R. The position of the bed of the Teesta river is indicated
by a dotted line from its source at T to the plains at S; of
Dorjiling, on the north flank of the outer range, by _d_; of the
first point where perpetual snow is met with, by P; and of the first
indications of a Tibetan climate, by C.

Illustration--SECTION OF THE SIKKIM HIMALAYA ALONG THE COURSE OF THE
TEESTA RIVER.

A warm current of Air, loaded with vapour, will deposit the bulk of
its moisture on the ridge of Sinchul, which rises above Dorjiling
(_d_), and is 8,500 feet high. Passing on, little will be
precipitated on _e_ whose elevation is the same as that of Sinchul;
but much at _f_ (11,000 feet), where the current, being further
cooled, has less capacity for holding vapour, and is further
exhausted. When it ascends to P (15,000 feet) it is sufficiently
cooled to deposit snow in the winter and spring months, more of which
falling than can be melted during the summer, it becomes perennial.
At the top of ginchin very little falls, and it is doubtful if the
southerly current ever reaches that prodigiously elevated isolated
summit. The amount of surface above 20,000 feet is, however, too
limited and broken into isolated peaks to drain the already nearly,
exhausted current, whose condensed vapours roll along in fog beyond
the parallel of Kinchin, are dissipated during the day over the arid
mountains of Tibet, and deposited at night on the cooled surface of
the earth.

Other phenomena of no less importance than the distribution of
vapour, and more or less depending on it, are the duration and amount
of solar and terrestrial radiation. Towards D the sun is rarely seen
during the rainy season, as well from the constant presence of nimbi
aloft, as from fog on the surface of the ground. An absence of both
light and heat is the result south of the parallel of Kinchin; and at
C low fogs prevail at the same season, but do not intercept either
the same amount of light or heat; whilst at T there is much sunshine
and bright light. During the night, again, there is no terrestrial
radiation between S and P; the rain either continues to pour--in some
months with increased violence--or the saturated atmosphere is
condensed into a thick white mist, which hangs over the redundant
vegetation. A bright starlight night is almost unknown in the summer
months at 6000 to 10,000 feet, but is frequent in December and
January, and at intervals between October and May, when, however,
vegetation is little affected by the cold of nocturnal radiation.
In the regions north of Kinchin, starlight nights are more frequent,
and the cold produced by radiation, at 14,000 feet, is often severe
towards the end of the rains in September. Still the amount of clear
weather during the night is small; the fog clears off for an hour or
two at sunset as the wind falls, but the returning cold north current
again chills the air soon afterwards, and rolling masses of vapour
are hence flying overhead, or sweeping the surface of the earth,
throughout the summer nights. In the Tibetan regions, on the other
hand, bright nights and even sharp frosts prevail throughout the
warmest months.

Referring again to the cut, it must be borne in mind that neither of
the two meridional ridges runs in a straight line, but that they wind
or zigzag as all mountain ranges do; that spurs from each ridge are
given off from either flank alternately, and that the origin of a
spur on one side answers to the source of a river (_i.e.,_ the head
of a valley) on the other. These rivers are feeders of the main
stream, the Teesta, and run at more or less of an angle to the
latter. The spurs from the east flank of one ridge cross, at their
ends, those from the west flank of another; and thus transverse
valleys are formed, presenting many modifications of climate with
regard to exposure, temperature, and humidity.

The roads from the plains of India to the watershed in Tibet always
cross these lateral spurs. The main ridge is too winding and rugged,
and too lofty for habitation throughout the greater part of its
length, while the river-channel is always very winding, unhealthy for
the greater part of the year below 4000 feet, and often narrow,
gorge-like, and rocky. The villages are always placed above the
unhealthy regions, on the lateral spurs, which the traveller
repeatedly crosses throughout every day's march; for these spurs give
off lesser ones, and these again others of a third degree, whence the
country is cut up into as many spurs, ridges, and ranges, as there
are rills, streams, and rivers amongst the mountains.

Though the direction of the main atmospheric current is to the north,
it is in reality seldom felt to be so, except the observer be on the
very exposed mountain tops, or watch the motions of the upper strata
of atmosphere. Lower currents of air rush up both the main and
lateral valleys, throughout the day; and from the sinuosities in the
beds of the rivers, and the generally transverse directions of their
feeders, the current often becomes an east or west one. In the branch
valleys draining to the north the wind still ascends; it is, in
short, an ascending warm, moist current, whatever course be pursued
by the valleys it follows.

The sides of each valley are hence equally supplied with moisture,
though local circumstances render the soil on one or the other flank
more or less humid and favourable to a luxuriant vegetation: such
differences are a drier soil on the north side, with a too free
exposure to the sun at low elevations, where its rays, however
transient, rapidly dry the ground, and where the rains, though very
heavy, are of shorter duration, and where, owing to the capacity of
the heated air for retaining moisture, day fogs are comparatively
rare. In the northern parts of Sikkim, again, some of the lateral
valleys are so placed that the moist wind strikes the side facing the
south, and keeps it very humid, whilst the returning cold current
from the neighbouring Tibetan mountains impinges against the side
facing the north, which is hence more bare of vegetation. An infinite
number of local peculiarities will suggest themselves to any one
conversant with physical geography, as causing unequal local
distribution of light, heat, and moisture in the different valleys of
so irregular a country; namely, the amount of slope, and its power of
retaining moisture and soil; the composition and hardness of the
rocks; their dip and strike; the protection of some valleys by lofty
snowed ridges; and the free southern exposures of others at
great elevations.

The position and elevation of the perpetual snow* [It appears to me,
as I have asserted in the pages of my Journal, that the limit of
perpetual snow is laid down too low in all mountain regions, and that
accumulations in hollows, and the descent of glacial ice, mask the
phenomenon more effectually than is generally allowed. In this work I
define the limit, as is customary, in general terms only, as being
that where the accumulations are very great, and whence they are
continuous upwards, on gentle slopes. All perpetual snow, however,
becomes ice, and, as such, obeys the laws of glacial motion, moving
as a viscous fluid; whence it follows that the lower edge of a
snow-bed placed on a slope is, in one sense, the termination of a
glacier, and indicates a position below that where all the snow that
falls melts. I am well aware that it is impossible to define the
limit required with any approach to accuracy. Steep and broken
surfaces, with favourable exposures to the sun or moist winds, are
bare much above places where snow lies throughout the year; but the
occurrence of a gentle slope, free of snow, and covered with plants,
cannot but indicate a point below that of perpetual snow. Such is the
case with the "Jardin" on the Mer de Glace, whose elevation is 9,500
feet, whereas that of perpetual snow is considered by Professor J.
Forbes, our best authority, to be 8,500 feet. Though limited in area,
girdled by glaciers, presenting a very gentle slope to the east, and
screened by surrounding mountains from a considerable proportion of
the sun's rays, the Jardin is clear, for fully three months of the
year, of all but sporadic falls of snow, that never lie long; and so
are similar spots placed higher on the neighbouring slopes; which
facts are quite at variance with the supposition that the perpetual
snow-line is below that point in the Mont Blanc Alps. On the Monte
Rosa Alps, again, Dr. Thomson and I gathered plants in flower, above
12,000 feet on the steep face of the Weiss-thor Pass, and at 10,938
feet on the top of St. Theodule; but in the former case the rocks are
too steep for any snow to lie, they are exposed to the south-east,
and overhang a gorge 8000 feet deep, up which no doubt warm currents
ascend; while at St. Theodule the plants were growing on a slope
which, though gentle, is black and stony, and exposed to warm
ascending currents, as on the Weiss-thor; and I do not consider
either of these as evidences of the limit of perpetual snow being
higher than their position.] vary with those of the individual
ranges, and their exposure to the south wind. The expression that the
perpetual snow lies lower and deeper on the southern slopes of the
Himalayan mountains than on the northern, conveys a false impression.
It is better to say that the snow lies deeper and lower on the
southern faces of the individual mountains and spurs that form the
snowy Himalaya. The axis itself of the chain is generally far north
of the position of the spurs that catch all the snow, and has
comparatively very little snow on it, most of what there is lying
upon north exposures.

A reference to the woodcut will show that the same circumstances
which affect the distribution of moisture and vegetation, determine
the position, amount, and duration of the snow. The principal fall
will occur, as before shown, where the meridional range first attains
a sufficiently great elevation, and the air becomes consequently
cooled below 32 degrees; this is at a little above 14,000 feet,
sporadic falls occurring even in summer at that elevation: these,
however, melt immediately, and the copious winter falls also are
dissipated before June. As the depth of rain-fall diminishes in
advancing north to the higher parts of the meridional ranges, so does
that of the snow-fall. The permanence of the snow, again, depends
on--1. The depth of the accumulation; 2. The mean temperature of the
spot; 3. The melting power of the sun's rays; 4. The prevalence and
strength of evaporating winds. Now at 14,000 feet, though the
accumulation is immense, the amount melted by the sun's rays is
trifling, and there are no evaporating winds; but the mean
temperature is so high, and the corroding powers of the rain (which
falls abundantly throughout summer) and of the warm and humid
ascending currents are so great, that the snow is not perennial.
At 15,500 feet, again, it becomes perennial, and its permanence at
this low elevation (at P) is much favoured by the accumulation and
detention of fogs over the rank vegetation which prevails from S
nearly to P; and by the lofty mountains beyond it, which shield it
from the returning dry currents from the north. In proceeding north
all the circumstances that tend to the dispersion of the snow
increase, whilst the fall diminishes. At P the deposition is enormous
and the snow-line low--16,000 feet; whilst at T little falls, and the
limit of perpetual snow is 19,000 and 20,000 feet. Hence the anomaly,
that the snow-line ascends in advancing north to the coldest
Himalayan regions. The position of the greatest peaks and of the
greatest mass of perpetual snow being generally assumed as indicating
a ridge and watershed, travellers, arguing from single mountains
alone, on the meridional ridges, have at one time supported and at
another denied the assertion, that the snow lies longer and deeper on
the north than on the south slope of the Himalayan ridge.