BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 659 
desolate. I arrived here on the 12th, and have been oceupying 
myself as I best could, arranging my botanical and other collec- 
tions, making observations to determine the latitude and longi- 
tude, measuring the breadth, depth, and rapidity of the stream, 
&e. Iam, however, very tired of the place, and anxious to get 
away. The season of the year is much too advanced for plants, 
and I have exhausted the geology as far as my limited knowledge 
enables me to do so. The valley here is of great width, but 
several high rocky hills lie in the middle. It was formerly an ex- 
tensive lake, with several islands, the alluvial deposits are of con- 
siderable thickness, and very plentiful ; they are also remarkable 
for being very much distorted instead of perfectly level ; such is 
their usual character. They generally consist of fine clay, but 
sandy and gravelly beds also occur, non-fossiliferous, yet in one 
place I found a few specimens of a Planorbis, and fragments of a 
Lymnæa. All along the river there are proofs of the former 
existence of lakes. Where the valley is wide, fine alluvial clays 
oceur. In the narrow parts you find coarse conglomerate, the 
boulders frequently of enormous size. Shells I only found in - 
one place on my journey, in the third march from Nubra. In all 
probability, however, they occur elsewhere; as of course my ex- 
amination of the beds was of the most superficial nature. 
“T am here about 7000 feet above the sea, water boiling a 
little above 199°. For the first five or six days of my stay, the 
weather was cloudy and dull. Since then there have been pretty 
regularly, alternate fine and cloudy days. To-day is bright and 
delightful. The thermometer stood at 16° at sunrise, which is 
rather too cold for early rising: but the temperature, now that 
the sun is well up, is delightful, though not much above 50° in 
the shade. The mountains all round are tipped with snow. 
There are a few Junipers upon them, looking like green tufts, but 
otherwise, beyond the precincts of the village, there is no tree vegeta- 
tion. This is a striking proof of the effects of climate ; for, although 
at the elevation of Simla, there is not here a tree to be seen. The 
distance from Kashmir is not a hundred miles in a straight line ; 
yet there the sides of the mountains are a mass of forest. It is 
VOL. VIL — 4 K 
