', ">f'af cbnsiderable elevations in tlie Himalaya. 353 



bers of the Himalayan Coniferae, which, were the country unin- 

 habited, would be carried to the sea and deposited with the 

 spoils of the deltas themselves in the new formations, which the 

 mud and silt of these great rivers are known to be slowly depo- 

 siting*. We should thus be presented with the association of 

 palms and pines, the occurrence of which is so well ascertained 

 in the coal-measures and far up into the tertiary series; and 

 even though we were able to demonstrate that these trees were 

 in situ, we have still the alternative to dispose of, that to the 

 present day palms and pines actually flourish on the same 

 ground, before we can legitimately argue from their juxtaposi- 

 tion any anomalous conditions of the atmosphere, differing 

 greatly fi-om our present experience. The existence of the mam- 

 moth in the cold regions of Northern Asia, provided with hair 

 and fur to protect it from the severity of the climate, might, a 

 priori, warrant a presumption of an analogous fact in the vege- 

 table kingdom, namely the existence of palms, or other tropical 

 families, so organized as to enable them to contend with a very 

 low temperature. 



This phgenomenon now rests on actual observation, and is quite 

 in accordance with facts in other branches of natural history, 

 zoology, ornithology and conchology, where several familiar in- 

 stances might be alleged of tropical genera with few, or even 

 solitary species extending far into the arctic and antarctic zones, 

 where their occurrence and discovery immediately and exten- 

 sively modified, or even reversed, conclusions drawn from the 

 presence in geological formations of cognate forms. And such 

 uncertainty must continue to rest on the result of our researches^ 

 till, abandoning the maxim, absurd in science, that " the excep- 

 tion proves the rule," we cease to look too exclusively to genera, 

 aed allow to species their proper place and weight in our systems. 



Description of the Palm referred to in the Text, from Griffith. 



Cham^rops Khasyana. 



"Nov. Spec. Triuico mediocri, petiolis per totam longitudinem deu- 

 ticulato-scabris, fibrillitio e fibris erectis rigidiusculis lamina reni- 

 formi-flabelliformi, profunda GO-65 partita laciuiis induplicatis 



* I can speak from observation as to the number of pines brought down 

 by the Suthij ; and as long since as the age of Alexander the process roust 

 have been the same, for the fleet with which he descended to the mouth of 

 the Indus was constructed of them. There is a regular business in catch- 

 ing the floating trees, and not a very safe one ; for such is the impetuosity 

 of the rivers, that the men employed are sometimes drawn by the timber 

 (to which they have fixed large hooks) into the current, and are infalUbly 

 lost. 



