Mount Everest.

The elevation of Mount Everest was first observed in 1849, but its height was not computed till 1852. Though half a century has elapsed since its discovery and the mountains of Asia have been continually explored in the interval, no second peak of 29000 feet has been found. There is but little probability now of a higher peak than Mount Everest being discovered and even the prospect of finding new peaks of 27000 or 26000 feet is becoming remote.

Some geographers have held that peaks higher than Mount Everest were standing behind it to the north, but their opinion was not founded on trustworthy observations, and when Major Ryder traversed Tibet along the Brahmaputra in 1904 he passed 80 miles north of Mount Everest and found no peak approaching it in height.

Three panoramas showing the outline of Mount Everest are included in chart vi. Owing to the objections of the Nepalese Government Mount Everest cannot be approached by surveyors from the side of India within 80 miles, and the trigonometrical observations that have been made of the Everest-Makalu group of peaks have been carried out under great disadvantages. The following description of Mount Everest is taken from a report by Colonel Tanner :

"The outline of Everest is rather tame than otherwise; it is fairly sharp and has a long snowy "slope on its north-east flank, the south-east being precipitous. Peaks of 22000 feet and thereabouts "encircle its southern base, and below them are seen many outlines of dark mountain masses which "are without snow.

"From due south, near the Kosi river in the Bhagalpur district, Everest is by no means a marked "feature in the landscape; its southern face has but 190 feet of snow, below which the mountain «' falls for 4000 to 5000 feet in a series of crags of very dark-coloured rock, only here and there dashed "and streaked with snow, below which are snow fields and broken masses of rock intermingled "with snow and neve. When the atmosphere is not very transparent the sharp tip is seen as a "mere floating white speck, the rock below it being almost exactly of the colour of the sky and there"fore invisible.
"The southern face of Everest from a near point of view is doubtless wild, and its cliffs must "be very lofty, but the great distance from which it is viewed renders this aspect of the mountain "uninteresting. In fact, from the south, Everest has all the appearance of a very moderate hill, not "in the least imposing and hardly picturesque. It is interesting only because by trigonometrical "operations its summit has been found to rise up further from the general level of the earth's "surface than that of any other point."

The panoramas from Mahadeo Pokra and Kaulia were drawn by Captain H. Wood, K.E., in 1903: those from Darjecling aDd Sandakphu by Captain Harman, R.E., in 1882. Major Ryder's description of Mount Everest as seen from Tibet will be found in the Geographical Journal, Vol. xxvi. "It stands alone," he wrote, "in magnificent "solitude." There is no doubt, whatever, that the peak observed by Ryder from Tibet was the same peak as had been fixed by the G. T. Survey from Bengal.