SPITI VALLEY, &c. 



255 



I beheld from this lofty station were fifty miles distant (and the eye 

 traversed a large tract of intervening country,) the difference between the 

 apparent and true level would of itself amount to fifteen hundred feet, 



farther verified by the observation of several contiguous peal^s, whose height had been fixed 

 trigonometricaily from various lofty positions by my brother, Captain Alexander Gerard. 

 One point, in particular, which flanUs a pass communicating between Kimdiver and Spilt, and 

 elevated twenty thousand and five hundred feet, had the smallest appreciable depression, and 

 the convexity of the level at the distance of my station, absorbed the trifling excess of height in the 

 peak. On my north was a detached group of white tops concluded, from the angles they subtended, 

 to be twentv-(bur thousand feet above the sea ; the marginal snow occupying a very narrow belt, 

 but the surface unbroken by a single dark peak. Beyond them appeared the chain of bare peaks 

 in a very sharp outline. I took the angles of various points. Some were upon the [ilane of my own 

 level, but generally all were a few minutes higher, and as the view was intercepted by an adjoining 

 ridge, I could not ascertain the limits of their height or extent. Their sides were very precipitous, and 

 from their reddish and often pale appearance, I concluded their structure to be gravelly or of 

 sandstone, of which their configuration gave every sign. Their steep and conical crests seemed to 

 have assumed that form by the wearing away of the surface : some were entirely naked, and where the 

 snow rested, it was in patchcj or stripes in the course of hollows. The ground at their base was very 

 rugged, and had an apparent elevation of eighteen thousand feet, the rock displayed itself below like 

 granite, overtopped by the red Ibrmation ; whatever it was, I am the more mclined to this belief from 

 the occurrence of vast blocks of granite in a gorge which crossed my ascent, having been disclosed 

 by torrents from the snow; while, at my nearest appulse to the summit, the rock was not connected, 

 and seemed to run into a secondary series. The extreme tops at an estimated altitude of between 

 fifteen hundred and two thousand feet higher were perfectly white, and had a bluff contour as if 

 derived from the elements of their structure. 'J'hc highest point of the bare ridge appeared at the 

 verge of interception by the slo()e of an adjacent mass of mountain which was cut off from my posi- 

 tion by a deep dell, but I have no doubt that loftier objects were to be seen, those in view being 

 sufficiently indicated to authorize the inference, and being accessible points as far as physical 

 obstacles are concerned, they hold out to adventuie a prospect full of interest with relation to the 

 structure of such elevated masses, and the observation of the unknown regions beyond them which 

 have not even a mark in our maps. The sun"s rays were very distressing here, but they seemed to 

 be showered down with triple ardor upon the chain of conical peaks till they glowed in the effect of 

 their desohition like a towering outline of volcanoes, to which impression their form and aspect 

 bestowed an ininge of reality. Some very distant snowy peaks glittered in the horizon towards Rupslin, 

 but the great chain which lay to my north in passing over that tract was not visible, and as it runs 

 behind the bare ridge and is sheeted with eternal ^now, its summits must be vastly elevated. Part of 

 the same chain was, however, descried from Purkeiil, rising out of the table land in a line of white- 

 ness, my own level being here ninetien tl.ousan 1 and live hundred feet, and the intervening country 

 between nie and the objects a littii' uiuKi it all black :— a still more eastern portion seen from near 

 Bekhar, had an ai)|)rcciable an-le ul altitude from a base of eighteen thousand two iiundred feet, aiid 

 at a vast distance. 



