Aug, 1850. SYENITE BLOCKS. GEOLOGICAL SPECULATIONS. 303 



Avere reminded of a moraine of most gigantic sized blocks ; 

 one which I measured was forty feet long and eleven above 

 the ground ; its edges were rounded, and its surface flaked 

 off in pieces a foot broad and a quarter of an inch thick. 

 Trees and brushwood often conceal the spaces between 

 these fragments, and afford dens for bears and leopards, 

 into which man cannot follow them. 



Sitting in the cool evenings on one of these great blocks, 

 and watching the Himalayan glaciers glowing with the 

 rays of sunset, appearing to change in form and dimen- 

 sions with the falling shadows, it was impossible to refrain 

 from speculating on the possibility of these great boulders 

 heaped on the Himalayan-ward face of the Khasia range, 

 having been transported hither by ice at some former 

 period ; especially as the Mont Blanc granite, in crossing 

 the lake of Geneva to the Jura, must have performed a 

 hardly less wonderful ice journey : but this hypothesis is 

 clearly untenable ; and unparalleled in our experience as 

 the results appear, if attributed to denudation and wea- 

 thering alone, we are yet compelled to refer them to these 

 causes. The further we travel, and the longer we study, 

 the more positive becomes the conviction that the part 

 played by these great agents in sculpturing the surface of 

 our planet, is as yet but half recognised. 



We returned on the 7th of August to Churra, where we 

 employed ourselves during the rest of the month in 

 collecting and studying the plants of the neighbourhood. 

 We hired a large and good bungalow, in which three 

 immense coal fires * were kept up for drying plants and 



* This coal is excellent for many purposes. We found it generally used by the 

 Assam steamers, and were informed on board that in which we traversed 

 the Sunderbunds, some months afterwards, that her furnaces consumed 729 lbs. 

 per hour ; whereas the consumption of English coal was 800 lbs., of Burdwan 

 coal 840 lbs., and of Assam 900 lbs. 



