1848.] The Turaee and Outer Mountains of Kumaoon. 359 



lake underlies half the mountain, which, when completed, will form a 

 " Chukkur" of three to four miles, unrivalled in India. It must be ac- 

 knowledged, nevertheless, that the sense of constraint and confinement 

 is unpleasant and inevitable ; no view of the snows, or even of the sur- 

 rounding sea of mountains is procurable at a less expenditure than a 

 clamber of a thousand feet, except to the residents of the ridges, who 

 acquire the privilege at the price of a daily descent to the lake, unless 

 they choose to imitate the Hindoo ascetics and perform a solitary pen- 

 ance on their " aery citadels." In this respect, Nynee Tal is inferior 

 to the other Hill stations ; its advantages consist in the exercise of boat- 

 ing, and, to those who have sufficient health and energy, in excursions 

 to the many glens around, which to the sportsman, the draughtsman, 

 and the naturalist, possess a richness of attraction undreamt of at Sim- 

 ian. There is indeed one extensive tract less open to the above objec- 

 tion, the Ghiwalee Estate, the property of Captain Arnaud, lying to 

 the south of Uyarpata, and comprising a series of swelling and beauti- 

 fully wooded elevated lawns, which, to the south and S. W. terminate 

 abruptly in a facade of magnificent precipices, from 1500 to 2000 feet 

 high, from the bases of which issues the Nehal river, flowing to Kalee- 

 dhoongee and the Bhabur, a vast expanse of which, and of the Plains 

 beyond, lies stretched below like a carpet. To the east, these cliffs are 

 of clayslate, in the centre of limestone ; to the N. W. of slate again, 

 distinctly stratified, and dipping from the plains. Here, as in the glen 

 of the Buliya, the rocks appear to rest on beds of blue alum shale and 

 white gypsum, which must be of immense thickness, as they accompany 

 us nearly to the foot of the mountains, when the gypsum assumes the 

 texture of alabaster. There is a strong chalybeate spring in the glen of 

 the Buliya. We find this same gypsum in exactly analogous circum- 

 stances, (i. e. just outside the limestone,) at Suhusradhara in the Dehra 

 Dhoon, and at Subathoo, under the limestone of Kurol ; and this lime- 

 stone, which in the Lohakotee mountain becomes crystalline in contact 

 with the micaceous rocks, exhibits precisely the same change at Jutog 

 near Simlah : a proof that the geological phenomena of the Himalaya, 

 though " a mighty maze," are " not without a plan." To the very brink 

 of the Ghiwalee precipices, the woods are composed of oak, ash, maple, 

 Siberian crab, cypress, and other northern forms, while the sward abounds, 



in the Primula denticulata, Parnassia nubicola, &c. : with Poeony at no 



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