244 



OBSERVATIONS ON HIMALAYAN CONIFERS. 



15,000 feet, because the sun shines brightest in the morning, 

 and is invariably clouded by noon." Lieutenant Strachey, in 

 taking points of Trisool and other Alps of Gurhwal and Ku- 

 maoon, to determine the position of the snow-line, found the 

 same fact hold true : and Schouw {Physical Sketch of Europe) 

 observes of the Scandinavian chain, " on the western side the 

 snow-line is lower than on the eastern, because the snow is not 

 so easily melted in foggy, damp summers, as it is under a clear 

 sky." The general result is, then, that the pine tribes flourish 

 on the west and north rather than on the east and south sides of 

 mountains, because they enjoy there a cooler, a calmer, and more 

 humid soil and atmosphere ; for the mechanical action of the 

 winds seems also necessary to be taken into consideration. 

 Vegetables, denied the faculty of locomotion, take the requisite 

 exercise by being swayed to and fro by occasional winds ; but 

 the gales which blow so regularly and fiercely up the Himalayan 

 glens, as remarked by Dr. Griffith, must destroy the loftier and 

 more exposed individuals, or prevent their existence, very much 

 as one of the higher animals would be killed by a state of per- 

 j)etual action, the necessary intervals of repose being withheld. 



" Manderung " is quoted, p. 51, as one of the " many kinds of 

 pine" observed by Captain A. Gerard (Journal, September 18, 

 1817) and other travellers in the N.W. Himalaya: in this 

 instance he trusted to memory or hearsay, and they copied his 

 oversight, Manderung being in fact a maple, I think Acer ster- 

 culiaceum ; and his " Sungcha pine " no other than the yew, as 

 I ascertained on the spot in 1845. " Bhurglei" (in Gurhwal 

 " Bunglai"), to which he gives 13,000 feet as the upper limit, 

 is Salix leucomelas. 



P. 53, Note. The testimony of Pliny corroborates that of 

 Caesar as to the power of larch-wood to resist fire. He says 

 (Hist. Nat. LXVL), " larice, quae nec ardet nec carbonem facit, 

 nec alio modo ignis vi consumitur, quam lapides." Vitruvius 

 states that Julius Caesar endeavoured in vain to burn down 

 Parignum, a tower in the Alps, by heaping against it logs of 

 larch ; they would not ignite ; and Loudon says, " The wood of 

 the larch ignites with difficulty, and a fire made of it will, if not 

 attended to, extinguish itself before the wood is half consumed." 

 Nevertheless, Erman represents it, if I remember right, as in 

 frequent use in Siberia, where it is in great perfection and abun- 

 dance, more hardy than the birch and willow ; its upper limit 

 being 4,040 feet on the Aldan mountains, near Okhotsk. The 

 Kussian name is Listvennetsa, " a crown of leaves." An attempt 

 to introduce the tree to Kumaoon failed from the seeds being 

 soldered up in tin, and probably sent round the Cape from 

 England. 



