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
The mean temperature of the twenty-four hours was 32.7 degrees (max.
41.5 degrees/min. 27.2 degrees), mean dew-point 29.7, and saturation
0.82. The mercury suddenly fell below the freezing point at sunset;
and from early morning the radiation was so powerful, that a
thermometer exposed on snow sank to 21.2 degrees, and stood at 25.5
degrees, at 10 a.m. The black bulb thermometer rose to 132 degrees,
at 9 a.m. on the 27th, or 94.2 degrees above the temperature of the
air in the shade. I did not then observe that of radiation from snow;
but if, as we may assume, it was not less than on the following
morning (21.2 degrees), we shall have a difference of 148.6 degrees
Fahr., in contiguous spots; the one exposed to the full effects of
the sun, the other to that of radiation through a rarefied medium to
a cloudless sky. On the 28th the black bulb thermometer, freely
suspended over the snow and exposed to the sun, rose to 108 degrees,
or 78 degrees above that of the air in the shade (32 degrees); the
radiating surface of the same snow in the shade being 21.2 degrees,
or 86.8 degrees colder.
Having taken a complete set of angles and panoramic sketches from the
top of Mainom, with seventeen hourly observations, and collected much
information from our guides, we returned on the 28th to our tents
pitched by the temples at Neongong; descending 7000 feet, a very
severe shake along Lepcha paths. In the evening the Lamas visited us,
with presents of rice, fowls, eggs, etc., and begged subscriptions
for their temple which was then building, reminding Dr. Campbell that
he and the Governor-General had an ample share of their prayers, and
benefited in proportion. As for me, they said, I was bound to give
alms, as I surely needed praying for, seeing how I exposed myself;
besides my having been the first Englishman who had visited the snows
of Kinchinjunga, the holiest spot in Sikkim.
On the following morning we visited the unfinished temple. The outer
walls were of slabs of stone neatly chiselled, but badly mortared
with felspathic clay and pounded slate, instead of lime; the
partition walls were of clay, shaped in moulds of wood; parallel
planks, four feet asunder, being placed in the intended position of
the walls, and left open above, the composition was placed in these
boxes, a little at a time, and rammed down by the feet of many men,
who walked round and round the narrow enclosure, singing, and also
using rammers of heavy wood. The outer work was of good hard timber,
of Magnolia ("Pendre-kun" of the Lepchas) land oak ("Sokka").
The common "Ban," or Lepcha knife, supplied the place of axe, saw,
adze, and plane; and the graving work was executed with small tools,
chiefly on Toon (_Cedrela_), a very soft wood (the "Simal-kun" of
the Lepchas).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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