450 



The Valley of Nepaul. 



[Oct. 



To the west of the Sumbhunath hill again where there is a stone 

 quarry, the rock is either of grey granite, or of a crumbling sort of 

 sand-stone tinged with a reddish yellow colour. The Gankurun hill is 

 composed, at its northern extremity, of hard granite with a superficial 

 stratum of clayey slate, which is under constant decay, leaving a red- 

 dish clay soil along the sides. The granitic portion is exposed to the 

 extent of 20 or 30 yards in the bed of ths Bagmutti as it passes through 

 a cleft on the northern extremity of the hill, the stratum forming an 

 obtuse angle (say of 20 degrees) with the horizon. Of whatever va- 

 riety, the superficial soil must, I think, be regarded as a debris formed 

 during ages of decay from the surrounding mountains ; for although 

 the composition of the soils occupying the central parts of the basin 

 may not be easily traceable at the present day to their mountain pro- 

 gcners, the similarity in many places of the soil along the mountain 

 bases, and stretching for many hundred yards beyond them into the 

 valley to the earthy or rocky formation of the hills immediately over 

 them is distinctly manifest. An example or two of this may be record- 

 ed ; the southern aspect of the Sheopooree boundary, is formed, to an 

 elevation of about 800 or 1,000 feet from the mountain's base, of a white 

 micaceous sand-stone, and we find the superficial stratum of soil which 

 extends into the valley, on the higher level, for about a mile, of a very 

 light sandy nature, largely mixed with mica. The superficial stratum 

 of the valley face of the Nagarjun mountain is principally composed of 

 a stiff and hard red clay, to which we find corresponding in the whole 

 of the cultivated land lying along its base from the Sumbhunath hill to 

 Ballajee, a distance of three miles, a great predominance of this sub- 

 stance, 



The process of addition to the valley land from the mountain debris 

 is in some places at this time in such active operation, as to be dis- 

 tinctly observable in annual additions to the cultivated spots extend- 

 ing up the declivities of the mountains. On the valley aspect of Chan- 

 dragiree which forms the south west boundary, this process is very ob- 

 vious. The valley by traditional lore is described as having been an 

 immense lake, the Sumbhunath and Pusputn.ath hills forming lands on 

 which the gods found resting places and appropriate sites on which to 

 be worshipped. The drawing off the waters is of course ascribed to 

 the direct agency of some of the local deities, and " the Sabre cut," 

 though the southern boundary of the valley forming the only outlet for 

 the present waters, and the one by which the lake was emptied, is still 

 pointed out as the handy work of a renowned demi-god (Manja Ghosa 

 by name). An earthquake, with which the people of the Himalayas 



