Himalayan Journals — Complete: Or, Notes of a Naturalist in Bengal, the Sikkim and Nepal Himalayas, the Khasia Mountains, etc.Hooker, Joseph Dalton
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Himalayan Journals — Complete: Or, Notes of a Naturalist in Bengal, the Sikkim and Nepal Himalayas, the Khasia Mountains, etc.
Hooker, Joseph Dalton
Himalaya Mountains -- Description and travel; Natural history -- Himalaya Mountains
The climate of the whole neighbourhood has of late changed materially;
and the fall of rain has much diminished, consequent on felling the
forests; even within six years the hail-storms have been far less
frequent and violent. The air on the hills is highly electrical, owing,
no doubt, to the dryness of the atmosphere, and to this the frequent
recurrence of hail-storms may be due.
The zoology of these regions is tolerably copious, but little is known
of the natural history of a great part of the plateau; a native tribe,
prone to human sacrifices, is talked of. Tigers are common, and bears
are numerous; they have, besides, the leopard, panther, viverine cat,
and civet; and of the dog tribe the pariah, jackal, fox, and wild dog,
called Koa. Deer are very numerous, of six or seven kinds. A small
alligator inhabits the hill streams, said to be a very different animal
from either of the Soane species.
During our descent we examined several instances of ripple-mark (fossil
waves’ footsteps) in the sandstone; they resembled the fluting of the
_Sigillaria_ stems, in the coal-measures, and occurring as they did
here, in sandstone, a little above great beds of limestone, had been
taken for such, and as indications of coal.
On the following day we visited Rajghat, a steep ghat or pass leading
up the cliff to Rotas Palace, a little higher up the river. We took the
elephants to the mouth of the glen, where we dismounted, and whence we
followed a stream abounding in small fish and aquatic insects
(_Dytisci_ and _Gyrini_), through a close jungle, to the foot of the
cliffs, where there are indications of coal. The woods were full of
monkeys, and amongst other plants I observed _Murraya exotica,_ but it
was scarce. Though the jungle was so dense, the woods were very dry,
containing no Palm, _Adroideæ,_ Peppers, _Orchideæ_ or Ferns. Here, at
the foot of the red cliffs, which towered imposingly above, as seen
through the tree tops, are several small seams of coaly matter in the
sandstone, with abundance of pyrites, sulphur, and copious
efflorescences of salts of iron; but no coal. The springs from the
cliffs above are charged with lime, of which enormous tuff beds are
deposited on the sandstone, full of impressions of the leaves and stems
of the surrounding trees, which, however, I found it very difficult to
recognize, and could not help contrasting this circumstance with the
fact that geologists, unskilled in botany, see no difficulty in
referring equally imperfect remains of extinct vegetables to existing
genera. In some parts of their course the streams take up quantities of
the efflorescence, which they scatter over the sandstones in a singular
manner.
At Akbarpore I had sunk two thermometers, one 4 feet 6 inches, the
other 5 feet 6 inches; both invariably indicated 76°, the air varying
from 56° to 79·5°. Dew had formed every night since leaving Dunwah, the
grass being here cooled 12° below the air.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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