and 429.) Carl Zimmerman (in the learned Analysis of his “Karte von Inner Asien,” 1841, S. 99) has made it appear extremely probable that the Tarim depression, _i. e._ the desert between the mountain chains of the Thian-schan and the Kuen-lün, where the Steppe river Tarim-gol empties itself into the Lake of Lop, which used to be described as an alpine lake, is hardly 1200 (1279 English) feet above the level of the sea, or only twice the height of Prague. Sir Alexander Burnes also assigns to that of Bokhara only an elevation of 1190 English feet. It is earnestly to be desired, that all doubt respecting the elevation of the plateaux of middle Asia, south of 45° of latitude, should finally be set at rest by direct barometric measurements, or by determinations of the boiling point of water made with more care than is usually given to them. All our calculations respecting the difference between the limits of perpetual snow, and the maximum elevation of vine cultivation in different climates, rest at present on too complex and uncertain elements. In order to rectify in the smallest space that which was said in the last edition of the present work, relatively to the great mountain systems which intersect the interior of Asia, I subjoin the following general review. We begin with the four parallel chains, which follow with tolerable regularity an east and west direction, and are connected with each other at a few detached points by transverse elevations. Differences of direction indicate, as in the Alps of western Europe, a difference in the epoch of elevation. After the four parallel chains (the Altai, the Thian-schan, the Kuen-lün, and the Himalaya), we have to notice chains following the direction of meridians, viz. the Ural, the Bolor, the Khingan, and the Chinese chains, which, with the great bend of the Thibetian and Assamo-Bermese Dzangbo-tschu, run north and south. The Ural divides a part of Europe but little elevated above the level of the sea from a part of Asia similarly circumstanced. The latter was called by Herodotus, (ed. Schweighaüser, T. v. p. 204) and even as early as Pherecydes of Syros, a Scythian or Siberian Europe, including all the countries to the north of the Caspian and of the Iaxartes; in this view it would be a continuation of Europe “prolonged to the north of Asia.”