440 Dr. Falconer — On the Himalayahs. 



In the outer ridges you get limestone and the newer primary rocks 

 (transition). As you go on, gneiss, mica-slate, etc., succeed. In the 

 outer ridges the volcanic rocks are greenstone traps (I believe I was 

 the first to make this out), often with porphyritic crystals, and here 

 and there unstratified quartz rock. As you go inwards you get granite 

 and syenite. On the southern side of the snow peaks there are more 

 recent formations, and I should not have said that the Himalayahs 

 are entirely primary. You there get limestone with Ammonites^ 

 Orthoceratites, Trilohitm, and TerehratulcB, as in the Mountain Lime- 

 stone of England. The snowy range, or central ridge, has an eleva- 

 tion varying from 15,000 to 26,000 feet. Perhaps the mean height 

 may be from 18,500 to 19,000. The snowy mountains are not, as 

 in the Andes, interrupted by j^eaks here and there of porphyries and 

 other traps, but a continuous line of ridges, and the highest of them 

 are certainly primary schists, such as gneiss, etc. You may re- 

 member, perhaps, Jameson's doubts about this point. But I am con- 

 vinced that they are only huge masses of the same formation as the 

 lower ridges, upheaved to a greater elevation. The scenery is magni- 

 ficent, like Byron's ocean, ' boundless, endless, and sublime ; ' huge, 

 vast, and awe-striking. To give you an idea of some of the views : 

 I got up on the top of a high mountain, called Choor, half way be- 

 tween the snowy range and the plains, with an elevation of about 

 13,000 feet. In front, looking to the north, the eye took in a con- 

 tinuous line of snowy ridges, varying from 15,000 to 24,000 feet, 

 or no less than 90° on a quadrant of the horizon. This is no 

 exaggeration. Between me and them stretched an ocean of mountain 

 waves, I overtopping all. In the rear, or south, stretched another 

 sea of mountain-ridges, with the plains of India in the distance, level 

 as a lake, traversed here and there by a streak of silver, marking the 

 tiny show made by the mighty rivers Jumna and Ganges, and then, 

 turning to right and left, was a stretch of ridge upon ridge and of 

 mountain upon mountain, bounded only by the limits of vision. I 

 stood upon pinnacled masses of granite which made a noble and 

 harmonious offset to the whole. Follow me, on another occasion, to 

 the source of the river Jumna, at the foot of the mountain Jumnoo- 

 tree, 21,000 feet high, I walking in the bed of the river, in a narrow 

 winding channel cutting off the view in every direction, with a lofty 

 wall of rock on either hand. Imagine now a sudden bend of the 

 channel, opening a vista in front, and the mountain bursting on the 

 view, rising nearly two miles in height right over me, its black 

 front i^atched over and its summit crested with snow, looking like 

 an enormous wave curling with foam and rolling on to overwhelm 

 us. So vivid was this impression, that astounded awe was the first 

 feeling, and it required an exertion of reason to get over it." 



