58 The Vegetation of the Islands of the Indus River. [No. 2, 
The Captain considered the billets that were large enough to be 
split into two, of the Jhao, when it was ‘“‘as red as beef” as the best 
wood on the river. But his heart used to long for the wood he once 
got when up the Jhelum river. “ Cows, that’s the thing for driving 
the engines.”’ Olea Europea, ‘Cow’ (Punjabee. ) 
Immense injury is done to the wood after it is collected at the 
wood stations, by white ants, which will, ina very few days, if not 
carefully looked after, destroy a stack, leaving a mass of mud in place 
of the original wood. White ants will not attack the Jhao, if the 
wood is red, to the same extent that they do the other kinds of wood. 
The soil of the Islands varies very much. It consists nearly 
altogether of a rich alluvial deposit at Kotree, gradually becoming 
more sandy as we ascend the river. This change to a sandy soil is 
very much more marked above Sukker, after which the soil really 
seems to be all sand with no earthy matter. Owing to this change 
in its composition as we gradually get above Kotree and approach 
Sukker those massings of the Acacia Arabica that we had down 
the river become less numerous and thinner: until at last by the 
time we have reached the junction of the five rivers with the 
Indus, we lose them altogether, as well as the Tamaria Indica, which 
is now replaced by the Z. dioica. Moonj gets abundant above 
Sukker and the Islands are very much less wooded, being more 
covered with grasses. 
I have no doubt that much of this river land which at present really 
lies waste, might be, with a little care and management, covered with 
trees capable of yielding both timber and firewood. We should look 
to timber as the ultimate object ; in doing so, we obtain firewood as a 
collateral result. In covering these islands with vegetation we aid 
in rendering them somewhat more permanent than they are at present, 
by the roots grasping and keeping together the soil. 
The following may be considered the history of one of these islands 
that may have remained permanent. 
In the month of September as the river falls, a mound of sand 
gradually appears, enlarging daily as the river becomes lower, and 
bare and barren. Butas the September winds blow, they carry clouds 
of the seed of the Saccharwm spontaneum from other islands; these 
fall on the:soil and then readily germinate. Ina couple of months the 

