192 THE PEAKS AND MOUNTAIN RANGES
K}, K*, K’, ete. So it came about that what proved to be the second highest mountain in the world became known, not by any name, but by merely 2 letter and a number.
In 1887, on my way from Peking to India, I passed close under K? on its northern side, and in a paper read before the Royal Geographical Society in the following year made some reference to it. At the conclusion of my lecture, the late General Walker and Sir Henry Rawlinson proposed the name of Godwin Austin, after the survey officer who made the topographical survey of the southern portion of the Karakoram range. This name was adopted by the Geographical Society, and now appears on many maps. But it has never been accepted by the Government of India, and Colonel Burrard in his above-mentioned treatise now writes :—“Of all the designations suggested for the supreme peak of the Karakoram that of K? has now the widest vogue, and it will be in the interests of uniformity if this symbol be adopted in future to the exclusion of all others. The permanent adoption of the symbol K? will serve to record the interesting fact that a mountain exceed- ing 28,000 feet in height had not been deemed worthy of a name by the people living under its
