Himalayan Journals — Volume 1: Or, Notes of a Naturalist in Bengal, the Sikkim and Nepal Himalayas, the Khasia Mountains, etc.Hooker, Joseph Dalton
History
Himalayan Journals — Volume 1: 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
We were not long before enjoying the water, when I was surprised to
find that of the Teesta singularly cold; its temperature being 7
degrees below that of the Rungeet.* [This is, no doubt, due partly to
the Teesta flowing south, and thus having less of the sun, and partly
to its draining snowy mountains throughout a much longer portion of
its course. The temperature of the one was 67.5 degrees, and that of
the other 60.5 degrees.] At the salient angle (a rocky peninsula) of
their junction, we could almost place one foot in the cold stream and
the other in the warmer. There is a no less marked difference in the
colour of the two rivers; the Teesta being sea-green and muddy, the
Great Rungeet dark green and very clear; and the waters, like those
of the Arve and Rhone at Geneva, preserve their colours for some
hundred yards; the line separating the two being most distinctly
drawn. The Teesta, or main stream, is much the broadest (about 80 or
100 yards wide at this season), the most rapid and deep. The rocks
which skirt its bank were covered with a silt or mud deposit, which I
nowhere observed along the Great Rungeet, and which, as well as its
colour and coldness, was owing to the vast number of then melting
glaciers drained by this river. The Rungeet, on the other hand,
though it rises amongst the glaciers of Kinchinjunga and its sister
peaks, is chiefly supplied by the rainfall of the outer ranges of
Sinchul and Singalelah, and hence its waters are clear, except during
the height of the rains.
From this place we returned to Dorjiling, arriving on the afternoon
of the following day.
The most interesting trip to be made from Dorjiling, is that to the
summit of Tonglo, a mountain on the Singalelah range, 10,079 feet
high, due west of the station, and twelve miles in a straight line,
but fully thirty by the path.* [A full account of the botanical
features noticed on this excursion (which I made in May, 1848, with
Mr. Barnes) has appeared in the "London Journal of Botany," and the
"Horticultural Society's Journal," and I shall, therefore,
recapitulate its leading incidents only.]
Leaving the station by a native path, the latter plunges at once into
a forest, and descends very rapidly, occasionally emerging on cleared
spurs, where are fine crops of various millets, with much maize and
rice. Of the latter grain as many as eight or ten varieties are
cultivated, but seldom irrigated, which, owing to the dampness of the
climate, is not necessary: the produce is often eighty-fold, but the
grain is large, coarse, reddish, and rather gelatinous when boiled.
After burning the timber, the top soil is very fertile for several
seasons, abounding in humus, below which is a stratum of stiff clay,
often of great thickness, produced by the disintegration of the
rocks;* [An analysis of the soil will be found in the Appendix.] the
clay makes excellent bricks, and often contains nearly 30 per cent.
of alumina.
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