Himalayan Journals — Volume 1: 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 — 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
arrived laden with salt from the north; I told him it was vain to try
and deceive me; that my passport was ample, and that I should expect
a guide, provisions, and snow-boots the next day; and that every
impediment and every facility should be reported to the rajah.
During my two days' stay at Walloong, the weather was bitterly cold:
as heretofore, the nights and mornings were cloudless, but by noon
the whole sky became murky, the highest temperature (50 degrees)
occurring at 10 a.m. At this season the prospect from this elevation
(10,385 feet), was dreary in the extreme; and the quantity of snow on
the mountains, which was continually increasing, held out a dismal
promise for my chance of exploring lofty uninhabited regions.
All annual and deciduous vegetation had long past, and the lofty
Himalayas are very poor in mosses and lichens, as compared with the
European Alps, and arctic regions in general. The temperature
fluctuated from 22 degrees at sunrise, to 50 degrees at 10 a.m.; the
mean being 35 degrees;* [This gives 1 degrees Fahr. for every 309
feet of elevation, using contemporaneous observations at Calcutta,
and correcting for latitude, etc.] one night it fell to 64 degrees.
Throughout the day, a south wind blew strong and cold up the valley,
and at sunset was replaced by a keen north blast, searching every
corner, and piercing through tent and blankets. Though the sun's rays
were hot for an hour or two in the morning, its genial influence was
never felt in the wind. The air was never very dry, the wet-bulb
thermometer standing during the day 3.75 degrees below the dry, thus
giving a mean dew-point of 30.25 degrees. A thermometer sunk two feet
stood at 44 degrees, fully 9 degrees above the mean temperature of
the air; one exposed to the clear sky, stood, during the day, several
degrees below the air in shade, and, at night, from 9 degrees to
14.75 degrees lower. The black-bulb thermometer, in the sun, rose to
65.75 degrees above the air, indicating upwards of 90 degrees
difference at nearly the warmest part of the day, between contiguous
shaded and sunny exposures. The sky, when cloudless, was generally a
cold blue or steel-grey colour, but at night the stars were large,
and twinkled gloriously. The black-glass photometer indicated 10.521
inches* [On three mornings the maxima occurred at between 9 and 10
a.m. They were, Nov. 24th, 10.509, Nov. 25th, 10.521. On the 25th, at
Tuquoroma, I recorded 10.510. The maximum effect observed at
Dorjiling (7340 feet) was 10.328, and on the plains of India 10.350.
The maximum I ever recorded was in Yangma valley (15,186 feet),
10.572 at 1 p.m.] as the maximum intensity of sunlight; the
temperature of the river close by fell to 32 degrees during the
night, and rose to 37 degrees in the day. In my tent, the temperature
fluctuated with the state of the fire, from 26 degrees at night to 58
degrees when the sun beat on it; but the only choice was between cold
and suffocating smoke.
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