1849.] On the Physical Geography of the Himalaya. 781 



mould which, if not cultivated, naturally produces a forest of Saul 

 equal to that outside the sandstone range, and then in like manner 

 harbouring elephants, rhinoceroses, wild bulls (Bibos), wild buffaloes, 

 rusas, and other large deer, with creeping things (Pythons) as gigantic 

 as the quadrupeds. The height of the sandstone range Capt. Herbert 

 estimates at 3000 feet above the sea, or 2000 above the plains adjacent ; 

 and that of the Dhuns (at least the great one), at 2500 above the sea, 

 and 1500 above the plains. These measurements indicate sufficiently 

 the heights of the lower region, and it is observable that no elevation 

 short of 3 to 4000 feet above the sea suffices to rid the atmosphere of 

 the lower Himalaya from malaria. Thus, the Tarai, the Bhaver and 

 the Dhuns are alike and universally cursed by that plague. And this 

 (by the way) is one among several reasons why I have assigned 4000 

 feet of elevation as the southern limit of the healthful and temperate 

 mid-region ; that above it being the arctic or boreal, and that below it, 

 the tropical, region ; though it must never be forgotten that more or 

 less of the tropical characters, especially in the suite of the seasons, 

 pervades the whole breadth (and length likewise) of the Himalaya, 

 whatever be the decrement of heat, and also that from the uncommon 

 depth of the glens in which the great rivers especially run, and which 

 in the Central and even Upper region often reduces the height of those 

 glens above the sea below the limit just assigned for salubrity, such 

 glens are in both these regions not unfrequently as malarious as is the 

 whole lower region. 



But, the above characteristics of the subdivisions of the lower Hima- 

 layan region, how noticeable soever to the west of the Mechi, are by 

 no means so to the east of that river, where a skilled eye alone can 

 painfully detect the traces* of the sandstone formation (without which 

 there can be, of course, no Dhuns,) and where the Tarai, considered as 

 a trough running parallel to the mountains, forms no marked feature 

 of the country, if indeed in that sense it can be said to exist at all. 



* In my recent expedition in the Tarai east of the Mechi with Dr. Hooker, that 

 accomplished traveller first detected traces of the sandstone formation, with imperfect 

 coal, shale, &c, in a gully below the Pankabari Bungalow, as well as at Lohagarh. 

 The sandstone rock barely peeped out at the bottom of the gully lying in close prox- 

 imity with the mountains, so that nothing could be more inconspicuous than it was 

 as a feature in the physiognomy of the country. 



