200 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 
BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 
Screntrric Mission TO THIBET. 
Again, as announced in a note at p. 103 of the present volume, 
we have had the satisfaction of receiving further information 
respecting the Thibet Scientific Mission, in a letter from 
Dr. Thomson, dated | 
* Camp, Nübra Valley, Oct. 26th, 1847. 
* My letters (if they have reached you regularly), confused and 
hurried though they be, will, I trust, to a certain extent, 
have made you acquainted with my route and the general appear- 
ance of the country and vegetation. I wish much that the southern 
parts of Chinese Tartary had formed the destination of our expe- 
dition, and I am sanguine enough to hope that I may yet have an 
opportunity of visiting them. My last letter was dated 27th Sept., 
at which time we were at Giah (13,000 feet), five marches from 
Leh. We descended the Giah stream to the Indus, which we 
reached in two days. Our road lay along a narrow rocky ravine, 
opening out, in one or two places, into a small plain, with a village 
and cultivated fields. "The crops (wheat, barley, and Sinapis for 
oil) were all cut, and, indeed, the vegetation much too far advanced 
to enable me to get a very good idea of it. The Rose (R. Webbiana?) 
appeared soon after leaving Giah, and I obtained two Labiate 
and a Cichoracea still in flower, which I had not previously seen. 
The best mark of decreasing elevation was the appearance of trees. 
At Giah there were two or three Poplars and Willows, while on - a 
the banks of the Indus they existed in considerable numbers. 
From the place where we came to the Indus to Leh, the valley of 
the river is of considerable breadth, consisting of sloping plains of 
alluvial conglomerate, dry, stony and barren, where there is no 
water, but well cultivated, and with many trees where water is | 
obtainable either naturally or by artificial means. Good engineering 
would, no doubt, much increase their numbers, and bring a very 
