BOTANY OF THE MOUNTAINS OF KUMAOON. 61 
the Romans derived its name from this. “ Why," he asks, “ did the 
Romans select the Poplar? May it not have been from some lingering 
association brought by their ancestors from the east? their language 
is full of Sanscrit forms and terms: why should not Sanscrit ideas 
have been imported with them, and the Poplar chosen as the best 
representative of the Peepui? The latter is sacred to Vishnoo, the 
Sun; and we find the former connected with the legend of Phaeton, 
whose sisters, the Daughters of the Sun, were changed into Poplars.” 
Much of the rest of this journey, and return to Almorah, was through 
regions of moderate elevation, and contains information which will 
hardly bear curtailing. We conclude our extracts by the following, 
upon the effect of climate on vegetation in the Himalayah. 
“The mean annual temperature, at 7,500 feet elevation, is nearly that 
of London, but the fact that few of the trees, indigenous at that alti- 
tude, can stand an English winter, points to a signal difference of con- 
ditions in the distribution of Himalayan heat and moisture. Dr. Royle 
well observes, according to astronomers, that ‘in advancing north 
from the Equator, the sun passes over 12° in the first month, 8° in 
the second, and only 31? in the third ; and that hence, from his longer 
presence there, and the greatly increased length of the day, the heat is 
more intense at the tropic than at the Equator: at the latter, the sun 
is more or less vertical for about six days only, at the latter for 
nearly two months.’ The distance of the Himalaya from the northern 
tropic is not great, and where we have a southern exposure is more 
than compensated ; there, indeed, the sun’s rays strike vertically with 
intolerable power, augmenting in the ratio of our ascent, so that one 
is absolutely scorched while walking on a glacier. What a contrast 
also between the generally serene brilliant sky and extremely dry 
atmosphere of the Himalaya, during eight or nine months of the 
year, and the cloudy canopy which so generally rests over the British 
Islands! The sun’s arrival at the tropic of Cancer is marked here by 
that of the rainy season, when the previously dry atmosphere is 
suddenly, and for three months, saturated with moisture, with a sun 
potent enough to knock down an ox, when he does show himself, 
which is but seldom. During this period, one is alternately baked 
and chilled half a dozen times during the twenty-four hours, and that 
not in the low confined, but on perfectly open, ridges, where it is 
consequently a matter of some difficulty to adjust one’s clothing to the 
