240 JOUENEY TO THE KY]\IORE HILLS 
vegetation at the same epoch. And he cites the Cycads especi- 
ally (Himalayan Journals, i. 8) in support of the statement that, 
finding similar fossil plants at places widely different in lati- 
tude, and hence in climate, is, in the present state of our 
knowledge, rather an argument against than for their having 
existed contemporaneously. 
Later (p. 44) he insists on the point again, contrasting his own 
difficulty in identifying the impressions of living leaves in 
the hme- deposits of a spring, with the fact that geologists, 
unskilled in botany, see no difificulty in referring equally 
imperfect remains of extinct vegetables to existing genera. 
The ascent of Parasnath, the sacred mountain of the Jains, 
was of vivid interest : 
We went thither on two elephants with a blanket cart and 
some provisions ; but the jungle was so dense, the elephants 
having to break away the branches of the trees with their 
trunks, that we did not arrive till 2 p.m. I got many plants 
on the route, the elephant getting several inaccessible species 
for me. You will hardly believe that a well-wooded mountain 
of (reputed) 7000 feet (but I expect only 5000) could rise out 
of India all but within the Tropics, and present neither Palm, 
Tree-Fern, Lycopodium, Scitamineous, Aroid, Piperaceous 
plant or Orchid-epiphyte of any consequence. No moss or 
Hepatica below 4000 feet, on trunk or rock, no foliaceous 
Lichen below that, and scarcely above, and not one fleshy 
Fungus. Such, however, is the parching effect of the N.W. 
dry winds, that the soil throughout is crumbly and the 
Cryptogs. at top, consisting of a few crust-Lichens and mosses 
(no Hepaticae seen), are withered and brown and covered 
with a Selaginella equally dead. 
There are six tops to Paras-nath, rising from a cm'ved 
ridge, all very steep and rocky, and each crowned with a 
platform and little white Temple, of the size of yom: Temple 
of Victory. There is, besides, a large temple, a little below 
the ridge on the N. face, sunk in a hollow, very picturesque, 
square with a large dome and four spii'es at the angles. All 
ai*e neatly covered with white lime. In the little apical ones 
I was surprised to find a slab of stone with the feet of Boodh 
engraved in relief, whilst the larger had many marble slabs, 
