360 



Extract of a letter from W. Jameson, Esq., Superintendent 

 Botanic Gardens, N. W. Provinces. 



I returned lately from a tour in Chinese Tartary, having crossed 

 the snowy range of the Himalayas via the Neetee Pass. I found 

 the limestone (dolomitic), of which the Pass is formed, filled with 

 organic remains ; and probably this is the greatest height (16,800 ft.) 

 where fossil organic remains are met with. I have not yet deter- 

 mined the age of these limestone beds, wishing before doing so to 

 compare the fossils. On the Thibet side of the Pass, I found 

 fossils in vast abundance ; and in the bed of the Jhoundoo river, 

 which drains the northern side of the Himalayas into the Sut- 

 ledge, I found beds of limestone entirely composed of fossils. 

 This limestone alternates with slate clay, which abounds in the 

 nodules and layers of clay ironstone. Our route was along the 

 bed of the Jhoundoo, over numerous streams which we had to cross 

 several times. The bed of the river is in breadth about half a 

 mile. The aspect of the hills is quite different from that of the 

 southern side, being much rounder and softer ; moreover, there 

 is not a tree to be seen, the largest bush being a poor Caragana 

 Gerardiana, not more than two or three feet in height. After pro- 

 ceeding along the bed of the Jhoundoo, we ascended a small range 

 of mountains, about 1,000 feet in height, and on reaching its summit 

 had a most magnificent view of the table land of Tartary, a scene far 

 surpassing any thing I had ever witnessed in the Himalayas or Aff- 

 ghanistan. In front of us there was a magnificent flat (though in 

 some places slightly undulated) plain, about twenty miles broad by 

 thirty in length, with here and there small mountains rising out of 

 it, surrounded on all sides by snow-clad mountains. . In the north- 

 east was the great Kilas range, whose summits surpassed the highest 

 of the Himalayas that were within vision, and the great Kilas (a 

 conical-shaped mountain, which gives name to the range, and at whose 

 base the Manasorawne lake lies, and issuing from it the Sutledge) 

 towers into the heavens and stands as it were alone as a giant amongst 

 his genii : coursing along the southern side of the Kilas range and 

 through the table land of Tartary, the Sutledge is met with, and 

 which was distant about 15 miles from our camp. The Kilas range 

 separates the Sutledge from the Indus, intersecting the table land in 



