LONDON MARKETS.

Tuesday, Feb. 24, 1818.

Cotton. The purchases last week were very extensive, consisting of nearly 17,000 packages. The East-India sale went off with much briskness; the ordinary qualities of Bengal sold a halfpenny per Tb. higher; the other descriptions, and the Bourbons, were unvaried; the purchases were chiefly for export and on speculation.

Sugars.-There was a very considerable demand for Muscovades during the last week, both for export and for home consumption. The favourable accounts from the country as to trade, and the short supply at the outports, occasioned a very considerable repuest for Muscovades this forenoon; the demand was chiefly by the wholesale grocers, in anticipation of an extensive home trade; the prices were generally a shade higher, but not so considerably so as to occasion an advance in our quotations. The market is still indifferently supplied with refined goods.

Coffee. The public sales brought forward last week were considerable, but not so extensive as the week preceding; the prices could not be stated any lower, yet the public sales did not go off with the former briskness. On Friday it was reported, that speculators, who had purchased very extensively some months ago, had a wish to realize the great profits that had accrued, and were offering very extensive parcels of East-India, &c. for sale a shade under the currency of the market; the reports also mentioned, that several purchases had been made on a very extensive scale. We give the rumours of the market without vouching for their accuracy.

Spices.-There is a considerable revival in the demand; generally parcels of the last East-India sale bear a premium.

Cocoa.-The prices continue nearly nominal. Rice. There is some request for Carolina rice. There were brought forward to public sale last week 1,299 bags Bengal descriptions; the whole went off freely.

Woods, Saunders Red..ton 11 0

GOODS DECLARED FOR SALE AT THE EAST-INDIA HOUSE.

On Tuesday, 3 March-Prompt 29 May. TEA, Bohea 500,000lbs, Congou, Campoi, Pekoe, and Souchong 4,800,000, Twankay 1,000,000, Hyson Skin 100,000, Hyson 250,000. Total, including Private-Trade 6,650,000lbs.

On Wednesday, 11 March-Prompt 5 June. Company's-Nankeen Cloth, and Bengal, Coast and Surat Piece Goods.

On Wednesday, 1 April-Prompt 22 May. Sundry Baggage of Passengers and others uncleared, as per advertisement in the newspapers.

On Thursday, 9 April-Prompt 10 July. Licensed and Private-Trade.-Indigo.

On Tuesday, 21 April-Prompt 17 July. Company's.-China Raw-silk.

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Feb. 3

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SIR,-Ranges of lofty hills generally impress upon the mind ideas of sublimity and grandeur; I know of none more interesting than those very extensive and immense ranges of mountains covered with perpetual snows, denominated Himalaya* and that divide the flat and fertile plains of Hindostan from Thibet and other regions, but imperfectly known. Perhaps a few observations respecting them may not be uninteresting to your readers, and they may induce others to consider this very important subject, so materially affecting the purposes of geography, the interests of mankind, the scientific world at large, and the acquisition of an accurate knowledge of the surface of the earth. They were first presented to my notice when acting as an assistant surveyor in the year 1788, in the vicinity of Colgong, in the upper part of Bengal, a place well known on the banks of the Ganges, as viewed from an eminence at that place. Their first faint appearance made

Himálaya, corrupted by the Greeks into Imä. us, is an epithet compounded of the Sanskrit

A very

it doubtful, whether they were distant mountains or clouds; but repeated observation for several days no longer admitted a doubt, but that the objects presented to view, although so remote and so pale, were lofty mountains; and as far as I could then judge, they appeared to be covered with snow. fine achromatic telescope made by Dollond, with magnifying powers from 60 to 300, was applied particularly at the rising and setting of the sun, when his rays were distinctly seen on the first and last illuminations of the various inequalities of the summits of these mountains, in a manner not only very beautiful in appearance, but impressing on the imagination great astonishment as to what could be the height and distance of objects so remote, bearing east of north, and distant by computation from one hundred and fifty to two hundred miles. Proceeding with the survey upon which I was at that time engaged, the same surprising appearance of distant mountains was distinctly seen from Monghir and Patna, so different in as

mavat and Hemacú, are also names of these hills, of similar import.-Ed.

Asiatic Journ.-No. 28.

of the Ganges and these far distant objects, at that time very forcibly impressed upon my mind, the vast height of this elevated and extensive mountainous tract. It was not until 1794, that I was again greatly interested in the appearance of the Himalaya mountains, on commencing my labours as an assistant surveyor upon another survey in the north-west parts of Hindostan. It was in the vicinity of Anusphir, in the province of Oude, at that time a military station on the banks of the Ganges, that the most conspicuous and remarkable parts of these mountains, as Budrinath, Cedarnath, Jemutra, Gangutra, &c. and others, attracted, in my operations as a surveyor, very anxious attention, and I then commenced sketching with much care their varying forms, at the same time taking bearings of all conspicuous peaks, and the other elevated parts of them. To many persons an assertion, that an object in any part of the world is visible at one hundred miles distance may appear incredible, but that remarkably elevated part of the Himalaya, called Gangoutra, or Mahadevaka-linga, is to be seen at a much greater distance. It is many years since I made any observations upon it, but I have a sketch and bearings of it in my possession at this time taken from Kunkala, near Hurdwar, from which place it is more than one hundred miles distant, and I have no doubt of having seen the same, and taken the bearing of it from Seerdhunna, situated about midway between the Ganges and Jumna, an increased distance of more than fifty miles; and I have no doubt in my own mind, that I saw and took bearings of the same, from the top of some of the buildings in Delhi, making in the whole

a distance of more than two hundred geographical miles: but in this I can hardly expect to be credited. I continued these observations as far to the north-west as

Panniput, and again at the Hurd war, and in some parts of Rohilkhund. Upon hastily protracting this line of our survey and comparing its relative direction and situation with the various points in the Himalaya, to which my observations extended, I remarked, that the pains and labor I had been at might be of some little utility in approximating (though not to any degree of certainty) to what distance some of those elevated objects were visible; but having obtained a base line in rather a favorable direction in extent of about seventy miles, computing the probable distance of the objects to be determined of at least one hundred and fifty miles, this datum was carefully inserted and inscribed in a fair field book, together with all the sketches, bearings, angles, &c.; but my daily occupation as an assistant surveyor afforded me no leisure while on the move, to accurately arrange the observations in any form, either by protraction or trigonometrical calculation, not doubting but the usual period of relaxation and shelter necessary to surveyors during the periodical rains in India, would afford me ample time for that purpose. But it is with great regret, that I state this survey was most unexpectedly and abruptly terminated, and the or ders of government received, widely dispersing every officer attached to it, when we had fondly hoped, that liberal patronage under which our services had commenced, would have been extended to the operations of some years; all my labours were of course delivered up to the senior officer, who belonging to a different establishment, immediately carried them to a remote part of India, and consequently afforded me but little chance of ever seeing them again. Many pains were taken to ascertain the latitude and longitude of particular points in this survey, and some parts of the Himalaya were so remarkable, that I could not fail to recognize

them, especially Gangutra, or Mahadevaka-linga. The natives when applied to, on all occasions readily pointed to them. Although the result of such data could not be expected to afford a very correct measurement as to their real distance, yet it would have produced some rational conjecture as to their probable elevation. Had this survey continued as was then confidently anticipated for a considerable length of time, the result of my observations regarding the Himalaya at that time and of subsequent periods would long e'er this have been made public. Notwithstanding this opportunity was lost of bringing under public notice the probable distance and height of the Himalaya range, I had made many observations while travelling from Delhi to the Hurdwar,* and afterwards while proceeding from Hurdwar through Rohilkhund, which impressed upon my mind, that the most eligible method of determining the exact situation of the Himalaya range, would be by the measurement of an adequate base line, either in the plain country in the vicinity of and to the west of Hurdwar, or between Nudjeebabad and Pillibit in Rohilkhund, or perhaps in both, and connecting them with the summits of the most accessible and favourable points in the intermediate ranges of hills situated between the plains of Hindostan and the Himalaya range, and ultimately with some or all of the most remarkable points in that. This mode of proceeding suggests a most laborious and arduous undertaking, perhaps far exceeding the equipment and means usually attending an officer employed for surveying in India; but a very difficult and arduous enterprise is only to be accomplished by adequate energy. All endeavours hitherto adopted appear to have been at

Hurdwar is evidently compounded of Hari the master or Vishnu and dwára or dwár a door or entrance; not as the Quarterly Review has it dwará, an error into which the writer of that article was most probably led by an auricular misapprehension of his informant. Ed.

tempted by insufficient methods, and have failed in producing that species of data, from which alone accurate calculations can be made, and measurements laid down, demonstrating upon sound theoretical and rational practical principles the precise distances of various points of the Himalaya mountains as viewed from different places in the plains of Bengal, Bahar, Oude, &c. with their respective elevations above the level of the sea. It would hardly be expected, in attempting to measure the small angles presented by observing the altitude of the highest of these mountains as they appear from Rohilkhund or the plains of Hindostan, that they could provide satisfactory data for determinately asserting that the Himalaya is higher than the Cordilleras of the Andes. Whether by trigonometrical or other operations, a calculation is liable, from various causes, to so much error that I apprehend it is only to investigate the incidental circumstances under which such altitudes must be made, to be convinced that no confidence can be put in them, as has been very ably detailed in a late critique in the last Quarterly Review upon a paper published in the 12th or last volume of the Researches of the Asiatic Society. A long residence in the champaign and level country of Bengal and parts of the N. W. provinces may suggest to the mind of an observer, in first viewing this prodigious mass of majestic mountains, that they are the highest in the world, and perhaps may induce an idea that they are higher than they may actually prove to be when actually measured; but the diversified forms of the scenery amidst the numerous ranges of hills intervening between the plains of Hindostan and the Himalaya, together with their majestic and wonderful appearance, encourage motives for conjecture, that the elevated snows which encircle the summits of the highest parts of these mountains are of