But although the mountains of India greatly surpass the Cordilleras of South America by their astonishing elevation (which, after being long contested, has at last been confirmed by accurate measurements), they can not, from their geographical position, present the same inexhaustible variety of phenomena by which the latter are characterized. The impression produced by the grander aspects of nature dies not depend exclusively on height. The chain of the Himalaya is placed far beyond the limits of the torrid zone, and scarcely is a solitary palm-tree to be found in the beautiful valleys of Kumaoun and Garhwal.* [Footnote] *The absence of palms and tree-ferns on the temperate slopes of the Himalaya is shown in Don's 'Flora Nepalensis', 1825, and in the remarkable series of lithographs of Wallich's 'Flora Indica', whose catalogue contains the enormous number of 7683 Himalaya species, almost all phanerogamic plants, which have as yet been but imperfectly classified. In Nepaul (lat. 26 1/2 degrees to 27 1/4 degrees) there has hitherto been observed only one species of palm, Chamaerops martiana, Wall. ('Plantae Asiat.', lib. iii., p. 5,211), which is found at the height of 5250 English feet above the level of the sea, in the shady valley of Bunipa. The magnificent tree-fern, Alsophila brunoniana, Wall. (of which a stem 48 feet long has been in the possession of the British Museum since 1831), does not grow in Nepaul, but is found on the mountains of Silhet, to the northwest of Calcutta, in lat. 24 degrees 50 minutes. The Nepaul fern, Paranema cyathoides, Don, formerly known as Sphaeroptera barbata, Wall. ('Plantae Asiat.', lib. i., p. 42, 48), is indeed, nearly related to Cyathea, a species of which I have seen in the South American Missions of Caripe, measuring 33 feet in height; this is not, however, properly speaking a tree. On the southern slope of the ancient Paropamisus, in the latitudes of 28 degrees and 34 degrees, nature no longer displays the same abundance of tree-ferns and arborescent grasses, heliconias and orchideous plants, which in tropical p 30 regions are to be found even on the highest plateaux of the mountains. On the slope of the Himalaya, under the shade of the Deodora and the broad-leaved oak, peculiar to these Indian Alps, the rocks of granite and of mica schist are covered with vegetable forms almost similar to those which characterize Europe and Northern Asia. The species are not identical, but closely analogous in aspect and physiognomy, as, marsh parnassia, and the prickly species of Ribes.* The chain of the Himalaya is also wanting in the imposing phenomena of volcanoes, which in the Andes and in the Indian Archipelago often reveal to the inhabitants, under the most terrific forms, the existence of the forces pervading the interior of our planet.