SPITI VALLEY, &c. 263 



the organs of life and matter, evaporation, and many meteorological 

 phenomena. 



The hope of new discovery increases the feeling of gratification we 

 experience in treading over spots unvisited by man. No precious ores 

 have yet come to light, but if analogy is any guide to expectation there 

 is nothing against the supposition, that metallic riches may be concealed 

 in the lofty masses of the interior, which in configuration and structure, 

 correspond to those that produce them in America. This is not a new 

 conjecture, and if they do exist, their site will probably be found in the 

 highest zones of the limestone or clay slate. The lenticular particles of 

 gold which are daily washed from the sand of the Sallej and other rivers, 

 afibrd no clue to the solution of the problem, but together with the con- 

 formation of the mountains and the fact (orally related) of auriferous ores 

 having been discovered in Thibet, there is no reason to discard the idea. 

 Copper has already been found at Sungnam in Kunawer and in Spili ; 

 which is here at least as presumptive of the existence of precious metals 

 as galena is of their mines upon the hither side of the Himalaya, which 

 though discovered, seem doomed to oblivion through the timidity and 

 poverty of the chiefs of the soil. 



It is to the inner ranges tliat we must direct research for the germs 

 of metallic wealth, and especially where the great lines of level mark tlie 

 highest continuity of the country. There is nothing to expect from the 

 primitive formations which shoot up in hard compact masses into the 

 peaks recognised from the plains of India as the Ilimdlaya. 



In the mountains verging on tlio \:Mo land, rocks arc all of tlic 

 order considered as sccoiulnry \\\\^ of tlu' very class which envelope 

 the treasures ill tlir Andes. In those formulions \\c liavi- in a general 

 view horizontal sandstone, wacke clay, and micaceous slate, and vai ielics 



