COMPARATIVE BEAUTIES 199
really most imposing it is not easy to say, and personally I almost cling to Kinchinjunga. Rakaposhi in Hunza, which is 25,550 feet in altitude, and can be seen rising sheer up from the Hunza River 5000 feet above sea-level, is also wonderfully impressive, There is a peak on the Pamirs 25,146 feet high which can be seen rising abruptly from the plains of Turkestan, which are but a little over 3000 feet ; and there is the Musher- brum Peak near K’ which is 25,660 feet—all of which I have seen, and which I find it hard to place exactly in order of relative impressiveness. But if Nanga Parbat cannot be placed in unquestionably the first position, it will in most men’s estimation approximate to it, and must in any case be reckoned among the most striking sights in the world.
Of what are these great peaks built up? No one has yet ascended their summits, and as Mr. Hayden points out, the geologist has to do his work at close quarters, and not like the surveyor from adistance. So the composition of the highest peaks is rarely known in any detail, though the general character of the rocks can be ascertained with a fair approximation to certainty, from obser- vation of material on the flanks, and from a distant
