SPITI VALLEY, &c. 2G5 



decomposed felspar and the fossil exuvias of animal matter. From the 

 vast extent of the homogeneous tract, as inferred from the narratives of 

 travellers and the productions of distant points of the plateaux, there is 

 every probability that the whole country lying at the back of the Himalaya, 

 the mountain ridges and plains of the interior from the skirt of Laddk, and 

 even the limit of Turkislan to the table land of the JBrahmapulra at TesJiu 

 Liimpu, abound with fossil relics, the living prototypes of which have 

 disappeared from the earth. The grounds of this belief are not comprised 

 in the productions of the SpHi valley ; several of the most curious shells 

 having been obtained from remote parts of the interior, but not being 

 objects of appreciation by the people as the Salagrdma stones are in 

 India, they pass unregarded, or are viewed with superstitious reverence 

 as in the case of the fossil bones of the Mammoth, considered to have 

 fallen from the clouds. The very few shells which have thus come to 

 light, are chiefly interesting as insulated specimens of the varied resources 

 of the country ; being from their unknown situs and position deprived of 

 their value to the geologist, though still identifying the continuity of 

 character, and pointing out an intimate analogy with the fossil geology of 

 opposite regions of the globe. 



The valley of SpUi, though remarkable for the poverty of its soil and 

 inhabitants, claims consideration in a physical view, the river rolling over 

 a plane, the extremities of wiiicii have a difference of level exceeding one 

 mile in a distance of one hundred, a fall unindicated by the appearance 

 of the stream. The declivity is to the soulh east, and the course so nearly 

 parallel, that with the exception of a single deflection above Slieealliar, 

 a straight line would iilniost lie williiu the ^\ lioU^ (•hatiiicl, a feature in 

 perfect conforiuit \' ^^itll llic homogenous nature of ilic rocks tlircnigh 

 which it passes; and wherever an obtrusive formal idii (k-cius there the 

 velocity of the stream iiiuleruoes a c liaimc, all tin- harder or pMiuiiive 

 rocks which enter into the structure" of the channel uiul'onuly hastening 



u 3 



