360 The Turaee and Outer Mountains of Kumaoon. [May, 



great distance. Immediately beneath is the semi-tropical vegetation of 

 northern India. The cliffs are slowly wearing back, and many of these 

 oaks, &c, must be carried down by the torrents to mingle with the 

 Naucleas, Odinas, &c. below. Now let us only suppose that a deposit of 

 coal was formed : what a trap to catch geologists, who would from its con- 

 tents draw the fullest conclusions as to the anomalous climate which in 

 former ages had permitted such incongruous materials to co-exist ! 



The limestone pinnacles of Deoputa are about 7800 feet high ; the 

 rock is here greatly shattered, and a complete wilderness of blocks lie 

 strewed below in the valley leading to Kaleedhoongee, resembling ano- 

 ther Glengariff, and equally softened by a mantle of coppice. Deoputa 

 declines N. E. to a gap, known as the Cheenur or Deoputa ka Khan, 

 7438 feet high (R. S.) and opening two routes by the savage glen of 

 the Bukra (or Boula) river to Kotah. Beyond this, the ridge is con- 

 tinued in the same direction, till it merges into Cheenur, the broad- 

 browed monarch of the Gagur, 8526 feet above the Sea, (R. S.) and 

 2,200 above the lake, from which it stands about a mile and a quarter 

 horizontal distance, and to which it presents a rocky and shingly front 

 so precipitous as to be inaccessible. The basis of the mountain is clay- 

 slate, apparently dipping West or N. W. yielding excellent materials for 

 roofing, like that of Ghiwalee : but the summit is capped with limestone* 

 which also occurs on the acclivities facing the S. W. 



On reaching the crest, as seen from the lake, it is found to run back 

 towards the N. W. for perhaps 1200 yards as a level ridge, exactly in 

 the line and direction of the lake's length. The summit is clothed with 

 a brushwood of Indigofera, Spirsea, Elsholzia, Salix ; Androsace lanugi- 

 nosa covers the rocks ; Anemone discolor occurs in the shaded places ; 

 and at the cairn of the Surveyors, grow a new Stellaria (semivestita, 

 Edgw.) and the Hemiphragma heterophyllum. The Holly (Ilex dipy- 

 rena) reaches a great size : one measured near the ground was between 

 1 6 and 1 7 feet in girth : but the characteristic tree of Cheenur is the 

 Quercus semecarpifolia, which fringes the crest, and covers the whole 

 S. W. face ; Budhan Dhoora and Sat-choolium, points of nearly the 

 same altitude, and at no great distance, on each side of Cheenur, have 

 not a trace of it; and on the former I could only find a few specimens 

 of Colquhounia vestita, a very common shrub at Nynee Tal and towards 

 Budreenath. The Ximonia laureola, too, occurs only in this locality on 



