280 Dr Govan's Observations on the Natural History and 



ering plants, Anemones, Potentillae, Primulae, Dryas, &c. &c, 

 on the spots occupied by the snow-beds ; — the solvent proper- 

 ties of the snow seeming to favour the formation of that rich 



© 



black mould in which these plants chiefly nourish. * 



The wooden galleries surrounding the upper flats of the 

 slate and shingle-roofed houses are, during the summer, stored 

 with grass drying for the winter subsistence of the diminu- 



© •/ © 



tive breed of cows, and of the flocks which occupy, during 

 the cold season, the ground floor, as, in the vicinity of many 

 of these villages, the snow lies from two to four months in the 

 year, giving promise, by the quantity in which it falls, of a 

 proportionably abundant wheat harvest. 



The returns of wheat,-f- indeed, are said in many of these 

 villages generally to equal, and often to exceed, those from 

 many of the best wheat lands in the plains of the upper pro- 

 vinces, under the influence of liberal manuring, with com- 

 posts formed of oak leaves, snow, and the dung of the sheep 

 and goats. 



The line of snowy summits, stretching in a north-westerly 

 direction to Wangtoo, from 40 to 50 miles direct distance, 

 with passes from the southerly to the northerly face, elevat- 

 ed from 15,000 to 16,000 feet above the level of the sea, 

 has its vertical summits eternally clothed with snow, where 

 one would not imagine, from the erectness of the plain- 

 ward faces, any moveable substance could rest, and is, of 

 course, at most places altogether inaccessible. The Rol 

 pass, which I crossed on the 25th September 1817, may per- 

 haps be formed by the decomposition of a bed of White 

 Feldspar, of which immense tabular masses hurled from 

 above occupy the bed of its northern river, the Shatooltee. 

 The summits on either side are not of Granite, but of a grey 



* A most remarkable natural provision for their defence against the in- 

 clemency of the weather to which they are exposed, is displayed by some 

 of the plants inhabiting these elevated regions, an elongation of their low- 

 er leaves, which become clothed with a dense lanuginous or cottony inves- 

 titure, and rise to form, by their junction, an arch over the tender flow- 

 ers. The same plants, occurring in other situations, have none of this. 



+ From 7 seer of seed, 160 seer of produce is frequently obtained ; it is 

 Asserted a seer is about 2 pounds. 



