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OBSERVATIONS ON THE 



XV. 



OBSERVATIONS 



ON THE 



SPITI VALLEY 



AND 



CIRCUMJACENT COUNTRY WITHIN THE HIMALAYA. 



By surgeon J. G. GERARD, 



BENGAL NATIVE INFANTRY. 



PART I. 



It had long been supposed upon theoretical inferences and conclusions, 

 deduced from accordant but vague information, that the chain of mountains 

 which defines a natural boundary beteen India and Thibet, recognised as 

 the Himalaya, had a corresponding but less rugged declivity on the north, 

 which sinking into a table land, undulated with a downward slope and 

 spread out into a plain, and that the whole level of the soil immediately 

 assumed an opposite declension to that of India on passing that lofty crest. 

 But on crossing various ridges at elevations between fifteen and sixteen 

 thousand feet in altitude, by the course of rivers which had their 

 origin on the southern slope, the snowy zone was found to be of great 



