434 Report on the Valley of Spiti. [No. 6. 



the ice. A great quantity of border ice is frequently broken up and 

 carried down the stream, which occasionally gets jammed, and the 

 passage is interrupted ; the river above then increases in depth, and 

 becomes impassable. 



The bed of the Spiti is so deep as to prevent its water being of any 

 assistance to the people in cultivating ; they depend entirely upon the 

 small streams from the mountains feeding their kools. On the right 

 bank of the Spiti are immense beds of debris, forming plateaux of 

 sometimes two miles in length, and from half to one mile in breadth ; 

 a quantity of calcareous deposit has taken place upon the debris, and 

 would afford excellent arable ground, but for its aridity, and impos- 

 sibility of conducting courses to water it : in some seasons when a 

 great abundance of snow has fallen upon the range of mountains 

 immediately above the level ground, cultivation is attempted, but it is 

 very uncertain, and in taking revenue from the country, it cannot be 

 accounted as productive soil. 



The probable total length of the Spiti river, from its source to its 

 junction with the Sutlej, may be estimated at one hundred and twenty 

 miles. I am told that fish have never been seen in the Spiti river. 



Geological Formation. 



Physical and General view. — The Physical and Geological account 

 of this country, such as I am able to give, can be embraced in a small 

 compass. The account of the mountains, valleys, and passes will, in 

 fact, explain the physical position. 



Gypsum and Alum. — The formations that I have seen, belong wholly 

 to the secondary period : in fact, Spiti may be described generally as 

 being of various kinds of lime and sandstone, with a few slates and 

 shales, and conglomerates. On descending to the bed of the Spiti, 

 after crossing the range which separates it from Kunnawar, beds of 

 red sandstone are first met with; in connection with these, below 

 Lare is gypsum, and alum ; and, from the water all the way from 

 Lare to Dankar being saline, I have no doubt but that rock salt 

 may be discovered in the vicinity of the gypsum. 



Fossil beds. — These secondary strata contain some excessively inter- 

 esting fossil beds. The first which I examined are in the Pinu. valley, 

 and above the village of " Mekion ;" they are a marine deposit, and 



