3. The mountain system of the Kuen-lün (Kurkun or Kulkun), including the Hindoo-Coosh, with its western prolongation in the Persian Elburz and Demavend, and the American chain of the Andes, constitute the longest lines of elevation on our planet. At the point where the meridian chain of the Bolor intersects the Kuen-lün at right angles, the latter receives the name of Onion Mountains (Tchsung-ling), a term also applied to a portion of the Bolor at the inner eastern angle of intersection. Bounding Thibet in the north, the Kuen-lün runs in a regular direction from east to west, in the parallel of 36° north latitude; until the chain is broken in the meridian of H’lassa, by the vast mountain node which surrounds the _Sea of Stars_, _Sing so-hai_ (so celebrated in the mythical geography of the Chinese), and the Alpine lake of Khuku-noor. The chains of Nan-schan and Kilian-schan, lying somewhat further north, and extending to the Chinese wall near Liang-tsheu, may almost be regarded as the eastern prolongation of the Kuen-lün. To the west of the intersection of the Bolor and the Kuen-lün (Tchsung-ling), the regular direction of the axes of elevation (inclining from east to west in the Kuen-lün and Hindoo-Coosh, and from south-east to north-west in the Himalaya) proves, as I have elsewhere attempted to show, that the Hindoo-Coosh is a prolongation of the Kuen-lün and not of the Himalaya.[BX] From the Taurus in Lycia to the Kafiristan, the chain follows the parallel of Rhodes (the diaphragm of Dicæarchus) over a distance of 45 degrees of longitude. The grand geological views of Eratosthenes,[BY] which were further developed by Marinus of Tyre, and by Ptolemy, and according to which “the prolongation of the Taurus in Lycia was continued, in the same direction, through all Asia as far as India,” appear in part to be based on representations derived by the Persians and Indians from the Punjaub.