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
We could make no further progress; the pass lay at the distance of
several hours' march, up a valley to the north, down which the
glacier must have rolled that had deposited this great moraine; the
pass had been closed since October, it being very lofty, and the head
of this valley was far more snowy than that at Wallanchoon. We halted
in the snow from 3 to 4 p.m., during which time I again took angles
and observations; the height of this spot, called Pabuk, is 16,038
feet, whence the pass is probably considerably over 17,000 feet, for
there was a steep ascent beyond our position. The sun sank at 3 p.m.,
and the thermometer immediately fell from 35 degrees to 30.75
degrees.* [At 4 o'clock, to 29.5 degrees, the average dew-point was
16.3 degrees, and dryness 0.55; weight of vapour in a cubic foot,
1.33 grains.]
After fixing in my note and sketch books the principal features of
this sublime scene, we returned down the valley: the distance to our
camp being fully eight miles, night overtook us before we got
half-way, but a two days' old moon guided us perfectly, a remarkable
instance of the clearness of the atmosphere at these great
elevations. Lassitude, giddiness, and headache came on as our
exertions increased, and took away the pleasure I should otherwise
have felt in contemplating by moonlight the varied phenomena, which
seemed to crowd upon the restless imagination, in the different forms
of mountain, glacier, moraine, lake, boulder and terrace. Happily I
had noted everything on my way up, and left nothing intentionally to
be done on returning. In making such excursions as this, it is above
all things desirable to seize and book every object worth noticing on
the way out: I always carried my note-book and pencil tied to my
jacket pocket, and generally walked with them in my hand. It is
impossible to begin observing too soon, or to observe too much: if
the excursion is long, little is ever done on the way home; the
bodily powers being mechanically exerted, the mind seeks repose, and
being fevered through over-exertion, it can endure no train of
thought, or be brought to bear on a subject.
During my stay at Yangma, the thermometer never rose to 50 degrees,
it fell to 14.75 degrees at night; the ground was frozen for several
inches below the surface, but at two feet depth its temperature was
37.5 degrees. The black bulb thermometer rose on one occasion 84
degrees above the surrounding air. Before leaving, I measured by
angles and a base-line the elevations of the great village-terrace
above the river, and that of a loftier one, on the west flank of the
main valley; the former was about 400 and the latter 700 feet.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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