SPITI VALLEY, &c. 257 



that literary memorials of the earliest periods may be extant in a climate 

 and position alike favorable to their preservation. If any Antediluvian 

 relics of the human skeleton are to be found at all, they are likely to be 

 discovered in some part of this elevated platform. 



The hygrometrical state of the air produces more important physical 

 effects than either heat or cold, for it gives a new aspect to a country; 

 and, in this respect, Spili may be taken as an index of the physical 

 constitution of the vast regions lying beyond the Himdlcuja, and its 

 consideration will assist to explain some of those anomalies which have 

 opened upon us in that hitherto unexplored quarter. 



The traveller in Thibet is struck with the difference in the aspect of 

 opposite sides of a ridge having in many places not more than twenty 

 miles in breadth. The masses of ice resting in hollows of the bare rock 

 near which no snow is visible, where the sun's rays are scorching, and the 

 temperature of the air is very mild, for though elsewhere it would thaw in 

 a temperature above ,32° it remains permanent here at nearly 50°. I have 

 seen torrents frozen solid in the beginning of September, where the ambient 

 air of the spot kept the thermometer at 57°, and the ice did not appear to 

 drop. In the southern hills, in the dry and clear months of November 

 and December, it is usual to see water freezing in a temperature of 46°, 

 at an elevation of four or live thousand feet above the sea, or under a 

 barometric pressure of twenty-five to twenty-six inches, — but by increasing 

 the density of the air by descending to a lower level it requires a much 

 greater degree ol cold to produce the same effect, and under circumstances 

 of excessive moisture, u thermometer will fall below the freezing point 

 and no frost take ])l;i('e. Cotemj)oraneous oi)serv:itions made between 

 various parts of the InlU and si, -non-^ on ilu^ nei'j;lil)oiirinu- jilain in the 

 latitude of .'31°, have venlird a fact \\hi(li t lieory has scarei'ly indieated. and 

 scientific inductions (as far as I am actiuaiuted.) are aluu)st ^ilenl upon. 



s ;> 



