readenglishbook.com » Biography & Autobiography » Himalayan Journals, vol 1, J. D. Hooker [13 ebook reader .txt] 📗

Book online «Himalayan Journals, vol 1, J. D. Hooker [13 ebook reader .txt] 📗». Author J. D. Hooker



1 ... 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65
Go to page:
of ice several feet long and a foot thick in sheltered places: at Purneah, fifty miles south, stones one and two inches across fell, probably as whole spheres.

 

Ascending to Khersiong, I found the vegetation very backward by the roadsides. The rain had cleared the atmosphere, and the view over the plains was brilliant. On the top of the Khersiong spur a tremendous gale set in with a cold west wind: the storm cleared off at night, which at 10 p.m. was beautiful, with forked and sheet lightning over the plains far below us. The equinoctial gales had now fairly set in, with violent south-east gales, heavy thunder, lightning, and rain.

 

Whilst at Khersiong I took advantage of the very fair section afforded by the road from Punkabaree, to examine the structure of the spur, which seems to be composed of very highly inclined contorted beds (dip north) of metamorphic rocks, gneiss, mica-slate, clay-slate, and quartz; the foliation of which beds is parallel to the dip of the strata. Over all reposes a bed of clay, capped with a layer of vegetable mould, nowhere so thick and rich as in the more humid regions of 7000 feet elevation. The rocks appeared in the following succession in descending. Along the top are found great blocks of very compact gneiss buried in clay. Half a mile lower the same rock appears, dipping north-north-east 50 degrees. Below this, beds of saccharine quartz, with seams of mica, dip north-north-west 20 degrees. Some of these quartz beds are folded on themselves, and look like flattened trunks of trees, being composed of concentric layers, each from two to four inches thick: we exposed twenty-seven feet of one fold running along the side of the road, which was cut parallel to the strike. Each layer of quartz was separated from its fellows, by one of mica scales; and was broken up into cubical fragments, whose surfaces are no doubt cleavage and jointing places.

I had previously seen, but not understood, such flexures produced by metamorphic action on masses of quartz when in a pasty state, in the Falkland Islands, where they have been perfectly well described by Mr. Darwin;* [Journal of Geological Society for 1846, p. 267, and “Voyage of the Beagle”.] in whose views of the formation of these rocks I entirely concur.

 

The flexures of the gneiss are incomparably more irregular and confused than those of the quartz, and often contain flattened spheres of highly crystalline felspar, that cleave perpendicularly to the shorter axis. These spheres are disposed in layers parallel to the foliation of the gneiss: and are the result of a metamorphic action of great intensity, effecting a complete rearrangement and crystallization of the quartz and mica in parallel planes, whilst the felspar is aggregated in spheres; just as in the rearrangement of the mineral constituents of mica-schists, the alumina is crystallized in the garnets, and in the clay-slates the iron into pyrites.

 

The quartz below this dips north-north-west 45 degrees to 50 degrees, and alternates with a very hard slaty schist, dipping northwest 45

degrees, and still lower is a blue-grey clay-slate, dipping north-north-west 30 degrees. These rest on beds of slate, folded like the quartz mentioned above, but with cleavage-planes, forming lines radiating from the axis of each flexure, and running through all the concentric folds. Below this are the plumbago and clay slates of Punkabaree, which alternate with beds of mica-schist with garnets, and appear to repose immediately upon the carboniferous strata and sandstone; but there is much disturbance at the junction.

 

On re-ascending from Punkabaree, the rocks gradually appear more and more dislocated, the clay-slate less so than the quartz and mica-schist, and that again far less than the gneiss, which is so shattered and bent, that it is impossible to say what is in situ,

and what not. Vast blocks lie superficially on the ridges; and the tops of all the outer mountains, as of Khersiong spur, of Tonglo, Sinchul, and Dorjiling, appear a pile of such masses. Injected veins of quartz are rare in the lower beds of schist and clay-slate, whilst the gneiss is often full of them; and on the inner and loftier ranges, these quartz veins are replaced by granite with tourmaline.

 

Lime is only known as a stalactitic deposit from various streams, at elevations from 1000 to 7000 feet; one such stream occurs above Punkabaree, which I have not seen; another within the Sinchul range, on the great Rungeet river, above the exit of the Rummai; a third wholly in the great central Himalayan range, flowing into the Lachen river. The total absence of any calcareous rock in Sikkim, and the appearance of the deposit in isolated streams at such distant localities, probably indicates a very remote origin of the lime-charged waters.

 

From Khersiong to Dorjiling, gneiss is the only rock, and is often decomposed into clay-beds, 20 feet deep, in which the narrow, often zigzag folia of quartz remain quite entire and undisturbed, whilst every trace of the foliation of the softer mineral is lost.

 

At Pacheem, Dorjiling weather, with fog and drizzle, commenced, and continued for two days: we, reached Dorjiling on the 24th of March, and found that the hail which had fallen on the 20th was still lying in great masses of crumbling ice in sheltered spots. The fall had done great damage to the gardens, and Dr. Campbell’s tea-plants were cut to pieces.

 

Illustration—POCKET-COMB USED BY THE MECH TRIBES.

 

END OF VOLUME I OF HIMALAYAN JOURNALS.

 

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Himalayan Journals, V1, by J. D. Hooker *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HIMALAYAN JOURNALS, V1 ***

 

This file should be named hmjn110.txt or hmjn110.zip Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, hmjn111.txt VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, hmjn110a.txt Scanned by Derek Thompson drthom@ihug.co.nz Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US

unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we usually do not keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.

 

We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing.

Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections, even years after the official publication date.

 

Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.

The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment and editing by those who wish to do so.

 

Most people start at our Web sites at: http://gutenberg.net or

http://promo.net/pg

 

These Web sites include award-winning information about Project Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!).

 

Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement can get to them as follows, and just download by date. This is also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter.

 

http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext03 or ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext03

 

Or /etext02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90

 

Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want, as it appears in our Newsletters.

 

Information about Project Gutenberg (one page) We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. Our projected audience is one hundred million readers. If the value per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2

million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text files per month: 1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+

We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002

If they reach just 1-2% of the world’s population then the total will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year’s end.

 

The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks!

This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers, which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users.

 

Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated): eBooks Year Month

 

1 1971 July

10 1991 January

100 1994 January

1000 1997 August

1500 1998 October

2000 1999 December

2500 2000 December

3000 2001 November

4000 2001 October/November

6000 2002 December*

9000 2003 November*

10000 2004 January*

 

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium.

 

We need your donations more than ever!

 

As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

 

We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones that have responded.

 

As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states.

Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state.

 

In answer to various questions we have received on this: We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally request donations in all 50 states. If your state is not listed and you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have, just ask.

 

While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to donate.

 

International donations are accepted, but we don’t know ANYTHING about how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made deductible, and don’t have the staff to handle it even if there are ways.

 

Donations by check or money order may be sent to: Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation PMB 113

1739 University Ave.

Oxford, MS 38655-4109

 

Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment method other than by check or money order.

 

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN

[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154. Donations are tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law. As fund-raising requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states.

 

We need your donations more than ever!

 

You can get up to date donation information online at: http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html ***

 

If you can’t reach Project Gutenberg,

you can always email directly to:

 

Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com>

 

Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message.

 

We would prefer to send you information by email.

 

**The Legal Small Print**

 

(Three Pages)

 

***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS**START***

Why is this “Small Print!” statement here? You know: lawyers.

They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from someone other than us, and even if what’s wrong is not

1 ... 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65
Go to page:

Free e-book «Himalayan Journals, vol 1, J. D. Hooker [13 ebook reader .txt] 📗» - read online now

Comments (0)

There are no comments yet. You can be the first!
Add a comment