104 Extracts.from the “ Journal of a Survey to explore [Avuc. 
remembered that on our return to Gangotri on the 2d of June, 
the bulk of the river was considered as being doubled, it being 
two feet deep, and also much wider, so that on the 3lst May, 
we may suppose it to have been 21 inches deep, and perhaps 
48 feet wide at Gangotri. It is with this mean size that the 
comparison of the difference of its bulk at Gangotri and the 
debouche must be made; the proportion thus is, that the body 
or quantity of water would be at Gangotri almost treble to that 
at the debouche; but allowing it to be only double in this 
J1 miles, it will be evident that in five or six miles further, there 
can be little or no water in the bed under the snow, and conse- 
quently that the most remote rill which contributes under the 
snow to the first formation of the Ganges cannot be more dis- 
tant than the ridge; so I think it may be allowed that such first 
formation is on the hither side of the ridge, and not at any lake, 
or more distant place beyond it. 
Indeed considering the large supphes which the snow valley 
furnishes, I rather wonder that the stream was not larger, when 
I measured it at the debouche. Whether there are any boiling 
springs under the snow as at Jumnotri I do not know, but sup- 
pose there are not, as I did not see any smoke ; a steam, how- 
ever, there may be, and the steam may be condensed ere it can 
appear. Iimagine that the season of the rains would be in one 
respect the most proper to attempt the passage of the great snow 
bed; it may at that time be reduced in thickness ; but I have no 
idea that it ever melts away ; yet in the rains it perhaps will not 
be possible to ford the river above Gangotri, which must fre- 
quently be done, if the smaller avalanches on which we very 
frequently crossed it are melted. In the rains also there must 
be greater hazard from the falling of the rocks and slips of the 
mountain, for the melting snow forms many rills which under- 
mine the rocks, and set them loose, and it is not possible to 
avoid a large fall of the mountain’s side, if one should unfortu- 
nately be in the line of its direction when it comes down. 
I have preserved specimens of the rocks of which these peaks 
are composed ; also of the different sorts of pines which grow at 
their basis. Above Suc’hi and Jhala, the country is not inha- 
bited, nor is it habitable beyond those places, except at the small 
village of Durali, which is now deserted. Tuwarra, Suc’hi, and 
Jhala, are very small and ruinous villages. Reital is a pretty 
good village of about 25 houses, as is Salung, and there are two 
or three more in that neighbourhood. I found the inhabitants 
civil and obedient. 
The people of Rowaen are in general much inferior in appear- 
ance to those of Jubul and Sirmour, and the more western moun- 
tains ; indeed, with few exceptions, they are an ugly race both. 
men and women, and extremely dirty in their persons. ‘They 
complain much of the incursions of the banditti from the western 
parts of Rowaen and Busahir, who carry off their sheep in the 
