1848.] Observations made on a Botanical Excursion, 363 



composition produces a very barren soil full of salts. The bosses of 

 ungrateful quartz render this sterile country more hungry still. Rice 

 fields are scarce and scattered ; I saw very little corn, grain, or castor 

 oil ; no poppy, cotton or Carthamus. A very little sugar-cane, with 

 dhal, mustard, rape and linseed, include nearly all the crops I ob- 

 served.* Palms are very scarce and the cottage seldom boasts the 

 banana or tamarind, orange, cocoa-nut or date. The Mahowa tree 

 however is common, and a few Mangoes are seen. 



February 2nd. — Marched to Fitcoree, the country being more hilly 

 and still ascending to this station which is 824 feet above the sea. 

 Though the night had been clear and star-light, no dew was deposited, 

 and therefore for the future I took the temperature of the grass, both 

 after sun-set and before sun-rise, as also of a Thermometer with a naked 

 ball exposed to the sky on a non-conducting material. During the 

 whole time I spent on this table-land the temperature of the grass never 

 sunk to that of the Dew-point, though the nights were always fine. The 

 copious dews that I had experienced on the much drier Egyptian desert, 

 between Cairo and Suez, were equally remarkable for their abundance, 

 as their absence is here. The only cause for this that I can assign is 

 an almost imperceptible haze, which may be observed during mornings, 

 producing that peculiar softening of the tints in the landscape which 

 the artist can well appreciate, but whose presence does not interfere 

 with a perfect definition of outlines in distant objects. 



The nights too are calm, so that the little moisture suspended in the 

 atmosphere, may be (during these nights) condensed in a thin stratum 

 considerably above the mean level of the soil, at a height determined 

 by that of the surrounding hills. The cooled surfaces of the latter 

 would further favor this arrangement of a stratum of vapor above the 

 heated surface of the earth, with the free radiation from which it 

 would mutually check. Such strata may even be seen, crossing the 

 hills in ribbon-like masses, though not so clearly on the elevated region, 

 as on the plains bounding the lower course of the Soane, where the 

 vapor is more dense, and the hills scattered and the whole atmosphere 

 more humid. 



During the 10 days I spent amongst the hills I saw but one cloudy 

 sun-rise, whereas below, whether at Calcutta, or on the banks of the 



* The Tussar silkworm is reared in some parts of the hills, especially the northern. 



3 c 



