Himalayan Journals — Volume 1: Or, Notes of a Naturalist in Bengal, the Sikkim and Nepal Himalayas, the Khasia Mountains, etc. — John Shaqi
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
Kosdera, where we halted, is a pretty place, elevated 440 feet, with
a broad stream front the hills flowing past it. These hills are of
limestone, and rounded, resting upon others of hornstone and jasper.
Following up the stream I came to some rapids, where the stream is
crossed by large beds of hornstone and porphyry rocks, excessively
hard, and pitched up at right angles, or with a bold dip to the
north. The number of strata was very great, and only a few inches or
even lines thick: they presented all varieties of jasper, hornstone,
and quartz of numerous colours, with occasional seams of porphyry or
breccia. The racks were elegantly fringed with a fern I had not
hitherto seen, _Polypodium proliferum,_ which is the only
species the Soane valley presents at this season.
Returning over the hills, I found _Hardwickia binata,_ a most
elegant leguminous tree, tall, erect, with an elongated coma, and the
branches pendulous. These trees grew in a shallow bed of alluvium,
enclosing abundance of agate pebbles and kunker, the former derived
from the quartzy strata above noticed.
On the 23rd and 24th we continued to follow up the Soane, first to
Panchadurma (alt. 490 feet), and thence to Pepura (alt. 587 feet),
the country becoming densely wooded, very wild, and picturesque, the
woods being full of monkeys, parrots, peacocks, hornbills, and wild
animals. _Strychnos potatorum,_ whose berries are used to purify
water, forms a dense foliaged tree, 30 to 60 feet high, some
individuals pale yellow, others deep green, both in apparent health.
_Feronia Elephantum_ and _Aegle marmelos_* [The Bhel fruit, lately
introduced into English medical practice, as an astringent of great
effect, in cases of diarrhoea and dysentery.] were very abundant,
with _Sterculia,_ and the dwarf date-palm.
One of my carts was here hopelessly broken down; advancing on the
spokes instead of the tire of the wheels. By the banks of a deep
gully here the rocks are well exposed: they consist of soft clay
shales resting on the limestone, which is nearly horizontal; and this
again, unconformably on the quartz and hornstone rocks, which are
confused, and tilted up at all angles.
A spur of the Kymore, like that of Rotas, here projects to the bed of
the river, and was blazing at night with the beacon-like fires of the
natives, lighted to scare the tigers and bears from the spots where
they cut wood and bamboo; they afforded a splendid spectacle, the
flames in some places leaping zig-zag from hill to hill in front of
us, and looking as if a gigantic letter W were written in fire.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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