FOOTNOTES
[1]Voyage, etc., vol. ii. p. 6.
[2]In this I allow 800 feet for the height of Loodiana above the level of the sea.
[3]Journal of Agr. Hort. Soc. Calc. vol. iv.
[4]Gerard's 'Koonawur,' Appendix, Table 3.
[5]I have carefully compared, since my return to England, a great many specimens of the Himalayan Picea, and am sorry to be obliged to dissent from the opinion of their distinctness, which has been expressed by many excellent observers. Great variations occur in length of leaf, which is either green on both sides, or very glaucous below. All have notched leaves, but the notch varies much in depth and form. There are also differences in the form of the cones and the shape of the scales. The long green-leaved state is that of the moist Himalaya; in the driest regions the very short glaucous-leaved form occurs. There are, however, among the specimens collected by Wallich, Strachey, and myself, so many intermediate forms of leaf, that I feel satisfied that all must be considered states of one species, varying, like most Coniferæ, with climate and other accidental circumstances.
[6]I have now no doubt that the whole of this descent was over an ancient glacier moraine, but I was not at the time familiar with glaciers or their moraines by personal experience; and though on this and other similar occasions my notes show that I was much puzzled by the numerous transported blocks, the idea of this explanation did not suggest itself to me till I had an opportunity of seeing the connection of such phenomena with actual moraines.
[7]The distant snowy mountains seen from the top of the Hangarang pass are probably those due north of Zungsam and east of the Parang pass, which Major Cunningham, from some angles obtained on our journey, estimated (I believe, but quote from memory) at nearly 24,000 feet.
[8]La, in Western Tibet, seems to mean always a pass. To the eastward it is often translated mountain.
[9]Jacquemont writes this name Khiri. I follow the orthography which I find in my notes made at the time.
[10]This limestone will, I believe, turn out to be the counterpart of the limestones of Silurian age, which form one of the most interesting results of the labours of Captain R. Strachey, in Kumaon and Garhwal.
[11]A very excellent sketch of the fort and village of Dankar, by Mr. Trebeck, is given in Moorcroft's Travels, in which the appearance and position of the alluvial masses is well represented.
[12]I state these facts on the authority of Major Cunningham. Captain H. Strachey visited this district in 1848, and will, I hope, soon make public his observations. He has ascertained that the surface of the lake is 15,200 feet above the level of the sea.
[13]Turner's Tibet, p. 406.
[14]Phil. Tr. 1787, p. 297.
[15]I have made over all my specimens of the borax and other saline products of Tibet to Dr. R. D. Thomson, of Glasgow, who is at present engaged in examining them.
[16]This juniper has a very extended range in altitude, being common in the drier parts of the Himalaya at elevations of 12-13,000 feet, and in some parts of Tibet, where it meets with a higher summer temperature, even as high as 14-15,000 feet. It is the Juniperus excelsa of Wallich, and, so far as the point can be decided by dried specimens, seems identical with specimens in the Hookerian Herbarium, collected in Karabagh and Sakitschiwan by Szowitz, and communicated to Sir W. J. Hooker by Fischer. The Taurian specimens of J. excelsa from Bieberstein are, however, a good deal different, and are perhaps only a form of J. Sabina.
[17]In Moorcroft's time, this place was a small village.
[18]I have been told by Dr. Jameson that he has met with it in the Kangra hills, but that he has never seen it in Mandi.
[19]A species of vine was very common in the forests, climbing to a great height on the trees, which very closely resembled the common cultivated vine, from which it is not, I think, specifically distinct. At the same time, my specimens are scarcely distinguishable from Vitis Indica, L., a species of the plains of India, not uncommon in hot jungles, even at a considerable distance from the foot of the mountains.
[20]Travels, vol. ii. p. 11.
[21]Written, I believe, Snurla, as Le is written Sle, and Nimo, Snimo, the initial letter being in all three mute. Many similar instances might be given, silent initial letters occurring very commonly in the written language of Tibet. It admits of much doubt whether the best mode of spelling be according to the pronunciation, or as the words are written: I have preferred the former, as less likely to mislead.
[22]I do not know whether or not to attribute to this plant a remarkable disease which, on my return down the Indus in September, I found in the village of Saspola. At least thirty people in that village, of all ages from a full-grown man to an infant, and of both sexes indifferently, had been attacked with paralysis within the last two years. The palsy was confined to the lower extremities, and differed much in degree. The sufferers were in other respects the most healthy and good-looking portion of the inhabitants. The people themselves were quite at a loss to assign a cause for this extraordinary affection, and, except in some article of diet, I was unable to think of any.
[23]This view has been suggested to me by Dr. R. D. Thomson, who has paid much attention to the chemical contents of springs, and is at present engaged in examining the saline matters which I brought with me from Tibet.
[24]Two months later, Captain Strachey ascended the Nubra valley till stopped by this glacier, which appears to be on a still more gigantic scale than those of the Shayuk to the eastward.
[25]Excellent specimens of this singular alpine plant, each tuft of which must, I think, represent the growth of centuries, may be seen in the Museum of the Royal Gardens at Kew, collected by Dr. Hooker in Eastern Tibet.
[26]I have no conjecture to offer regarding the age or nature of this very remarkable rock.
[27]The itinerary of Mir Izzet Ullah shows that at the time of his journey from Le to Yarkand the direct road up the Shayuk was still open.
[28]Asie Centrale, vol. i. p. 14.
[29]Manasarawar and Rawan Rhad.
[30]Moorcroft's Travels, vol. ii. pp. 47-50.
[31]Journal of the Asiatic Society of Calcutta, 1842, No. 126. Captain Herbert, who had travelled a great deal in the Himalaya, was the first to point out the impropriety of regarding these mountains as a single chain parallel to the plains of India. Jacquemont also arrived at the same conclusion, as will be seen from the following extract from his journal:—"Le langage de la géographie descriptive est théorique; c'est une grande faute si les théories qu'il rappelle sans cesse sont dénuées de fondement. Ainsi l'on dit que le Setludje coupe la chaîne centrale de l'Himalaya, que sa vallée est creusée au travers, etc., etc., et l'on donne à penser par là que cette chaîne auparavant etait continue et que c'est par un effort des eaux que s'y est faite cette large trouée, comme si les montagnes avaient dû se former primitivement avec une continuité non interrompue" (vol. ii. p. 201); and again (at p. 269), "Le Setludje coule donc non au nord de l'Himalaya, mais entre deux chaînes à peu près également élevées."
[32]Captain R. Strachey, in his paper on the snow-level, proposes to call the more western part of the Cis-Sutlej Himalaya the Busehir range, a name which, though exceedingly appropriate to the portion to which he applies it, is not adapted for extension to the more eastern part.
[33]Travels in Kashmir, etc., vol. ii. p. 382.
[34]Travels, vol. i. p. 361.
[35]That Tibet is not an extensive plain, according to the usual idea, has already been pointed out by Humboldt (Asie Centrale, vol. i. p. 12). Chinese geographers, according to him, describe all parts of Tibet as more or less mountainous; the eastern portion of West Tibet (Gnari) as least so. Captain H. Strachey, in his account of his visit to lake Manasarawar, says expressly that "the surface of Gnari is for the most part extremely mountainous." In the lower Tibetan course of the Sutlej, the recent discoveries of Captain Strachey show that an alluvial table-land of considerable extent exists, intersected by deep ravines.
[36]See some observations of the thermometer recorded by Mr. Vigne, at Iskardo, Khapalu, etc.
[37]Asie Centrale, vol. iii. p. 22.
[38]In the Map No. 65 of the Survey of the Western Himalaya, by Captains Hodgson and Herbert, the glacier of Gangutri is marked "Great snow-bed or glacier;" but whether this indication of a knowledge of the true nature of the mass is due to the surveyors or to the maker of the map in England, I have no means at present of ascertaining.
[39]On the Snow-level in the Himalaya, in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Calcutta.
[40]The thermometric results obtained by these two travellers do not agree with one another. M. Hügel's thermometer indicated 6300 feet for the elevation of Kashmir, a result which is known from the barometric observations of Jacquemont to be 1000 feet in excess. Mr. Vigne's thermometer, when tested by Moorcroft's barometric results at Le, errs considerably in the opposite direction. In neither case do I know the mode of calculation employed, the results only being given.
Transcriber's Note:
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation in the original document have been preserved.
On page [30], text appears to be missing from the phrase: "the ridge continues in a * direction".
On page [342], 12th of May is probably a typo for 12th of June.
On page [393], the phrase "was finely seen" should perhaps be "was finally seen".