LADAK. 
65 
leaf to be met with from November till the end of 
May. 
A few cloudy days in September often do great 
damage, by preventing the crops from ripening. 
Eain scarcely ever falls in Ladak. I believe it is 
no exaggeration to say, that the entire rainfall for 
twelve months would hardly be sufficient to wet one's 
coat. Captain (now General) Strachey, in the 23rd 
volume of the Greographical Society's Journal, esti- 
mates the total annual amount of rain and snow 
at about three or four inches. Snow occasionally 
falls to the depth of six or eight inches at one time, 
but owing to the excessive dryness of the atmosphere, 
it usually evaporates in a few hours without per- 
ceptibly liquefying. 
Perhaps the most striking feature of Ladak is the 
wonderful clearness of the atmosphere. This is partly 
owing to its extreme dryness and rarefaction, but 
chiefly to the entire absence of haze. On the 
Yarkand plains, with an atmosphere equally dry, we 
had a dense haze produced by fine dust floating in 
the air. In Ladak, hills which are fifty miles dis- 
tant, appear to be within an easy march, and it is 
remarkable, as I have before stated, that with the 
thermometer in the shade near the freezing point, it 
may be, a black bulb thermometer placed in the sun 
will often register as high as 212° F. — i.e., the boiling 
point of water at the sea level. 
On the higher mountain ranges rain or snow falls 
much more frequently, and in greater quantity than 
on the low ground, and I have on three occasions 
seen a slight thunderstorm on the mountains near 
Le. Were it not for these elevated mountains, which 
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