"good 6 palms in length," say 60 inches.
This head, as I learn from a letter of Colonel Gordon's to a friend, has
one horn perfect which measures 65-1/2 inches on the curves; the other,
broken at the tip measures 64 inches; the straight line between the tips
is 55 inches.

[Captain Younghusband [1886] "before leaving the Altai Mountains, picked
up several heads of the _Ovis Poli_, called Argali by the Mongols. They
were somewhat different from those which I afterwards saw at Yarkand,
which had been brought in from the Pamir. Those I found in the Gobi were
considerably thicker at the base, there was a less degree of curve, and a
shorter length of horn." A full description of the _Ovis Poli_, with a
large plate drawing of the horns, may be seen in Colonel Gordon's _Roof of
the World_. (See p. 81.) (_Proc. R. G. S._ X. 1888, p. 495.) Some years
later, Captain Younghusband speaks repeatedly of the great sport of
shooting _Ovis Poli_. (_Proc. R. G. S._ XIV. 1892, pp. 205, 234.)--H. C.]

As to the pasture, Timkowski heard that "the pasturage of Pamir is so
luxuriant and nutritious, that if horses are left on it for more than
forty days they die of repletion." (I. 421.) And Wood: "The grass of
Pamir, they tell you, is so rich that a sorry horse is here brought into
good condition in less than twenty days; and its nourishing qualities are
evidenced in the productiveness of their ewes, which almost invariably
bring forth two lambs at a birth." (P. 365.)

With regard to the effect upon fire ascribed to the "great cold,"
Ramusio's version inserts the expression "_gli fu affermato per
miracolo_," "it was asserted to him as a wonderful circumstance." And
Humboldt thinks it so strange that Marco should not have observed this
personally that he doubts whether Polo himself passed the Pamir. "How is
it that he does not say that he himself had seen how the flames disperse
and leap about, as I myself have so often experienced at similar altitudes
in the Cordilleras of the Andes, especially when investigating the
boiling-point of water?" (_Cent. Asia_, Germ. Transl. I. 588.) But the
words quoted from Ramusio do not exist in the old texts, and they are
probably an editorial interpolation indicating disbelief in the statement.

MM. Huc and Gabet made a like observation on the high passes of
north-eastern Tibet: "The _argols_ gave out much smoke, but would not burn
with any flame"; only they adopted the native idea that this as well as
th