288 GREAT RUNGEET VALLEY. Chap. XII. 



I walked down the banks of the river, which flowed in a 

 deep gorge, cumbered with enormous boulders of granite, 

 clay-slate, and mica-slate ; the rocks in situ were all of 

 the latter description, highly inclined, and much dislocated. 

 Some of the boulders were fully ten feet in diameter, per- 

 meated and altered very much by granite veins which had 

 evidently been injected when molten, and had taken up 

 angular masses of the chlorite which remained, as it were, 

 suspended in the veins. 



It is not so easy to account for the present position of these 

 blocks of granite, a rock not common at elevations below 

 10,000 feet. They have been transported from a consi- 

 derable distance in the interior of the lofty valley to the 

 north, and have descended not less than 8000 feet, and 

 travelled fully fifteen miles in a straight line, or perhaps 

 forty along the river bed. It may be supposed that 

 moraines have transported them to 8000 feet (the lowest 

 limit of apparent moraines), and the power of river water 

 carried them further ; if so, the rivers must have been of 

 much greater volume formerly than they are now. 



Our camp was on a gravel flat, like those of the Nepal 

 valleys, about sixty feet above the river ; its temperature was 

 52°, which felt cool when bathing. 



From the river we proceeded west, following a steep 

 and clayey ascent up the end of a very long spur, from the 

 lofty mountain range called Mungbreu, dividing the Great 

 Rungeet from the Teesta. We ascended by a narrow path, 

 accomplishing 2,500 feet in an hour and a quarter, walking 

 slowly but steadily, without resting ; this I always found a 

 heavy pull in a hot climate. 



At about 4000 feet above the sea, the spur became more 

 open and flat, like those of the Kulhait valley, with alter- 

 nate slopes and comparative flats : from this elevation the 



