The small number of lakes in the Himalaya is one of the peculiarities of these mountains. The Lake of Ular, in the valley of Cashmere, is the only one of any magnitude; it is but 40 miles in circumference, and seems to be the residue of one that had filled the whole valley at some early period. There are many great lakes, both fresh and salt, on the table-land; the annular form of Lake Palte, at the northern base of the Himalaya, as represented on maps, is unexampled; the sacred lakes of Manasarowar, in Great Tibet, and of Rakas Tal, occupy a space of about 400 square miles, in the centre of the Himalaya, between the gigantic peaks of Gurla on the south and of Kailas on the north; it is from the westernmost of these lakes (which communicate with each other), the Cho Lagan of the Tibetians, that the Sutlej rises, at an elevation of 15,200 feet above the level of the sea. These remarkable lakes mark the point from around which all the great rivers rising in the Himalaya have their origin. Tibet is full of lakes, many of which produce borax, found nowhere else but in Tuscany and in the Lipari Islands. As most of the great lakes on the table-land are in the Chinese territories, strangers have not had access to them; the Koko-nor and Lake Lop seem to be very large; the latter is said to have a surface of 2187 square miles, and there are others not inferior to it in the north. The lakes in the Altaï are beautiful, larger and more numerous than in any other mountain-chain. They are at different elevations on the terraces by which the table-land descends to the flats of Siberia, and are, owing to geological phenomena, essentially different from those which have produced the Caspian and other steppe lakes. They seem to have been hollows formed where the axes of the different branches of the chain cross, and are most numerous and deepest in the eastern Altaï. Baikal, the largest mountain lake, supposed to owe its origin to the sinking of the ground during an earthquake, has an area of 14,800 square miles, nearly equal to the half of Scotland. It lies buried in the form of a crescent, amid lofty granite mountains, which constitute the edge of the table-land to the south, ending in the desert of the Great Gobi, and in the north-west they gird the shore so closely that they dip into the water in many places; 160 rivers and streams fall into this salt lake, which drains a country probably twice the size of Britain. The river Angara, which runs deep and strong through a crevice at its eastern end, is its principal outlet, and is supposed to carry off but a small proportion of its water. Its surface is 1793 feet above the sea-level, and the climate is as severe as it is in Europe 10° farther north; yet the lake does not freeze till the middle of December, possibly from its depth, being unfathomable with a line of 600 feet.