replaced in the lower part by a hard limestone | allu-
vrnm was everywhere plentiful, forming, near Molbil,
table-topped platforms of indurated conglomerate, horizontally
stratified, and faced . towards the stream by
scarped cliffs. The afternoon was again stormy, and a
good deal of rain fell during the night.
Next day I made a long march to Pashkyum, following
the course of the river of that name. The descent
was very gradual, and the road varied much in character,
the valley being sometimes open, at other times
narrow and rocky. The villages increased in numbers
as the elevation diminished, and latterly for several miles
cultivation was continuous. Pashkyum is not more than
8600 feet above the sea, and accordingly the season was
much less advanced than it had been three and four
thousand feet higher, the weather being much milder,
and the summer heat no doubt much more considerable
than in the neighbourhood of Le. The crops had long
been cut, except the buckwheat, the fields of which were
however quite ripe; the plants were being plucked up
by the roots and laid down separately in the fields to
dry, previous to removal to the threshing-floor.
A remarkable change had taken place in the appearance
of the country during this day’s journey. The
banks of the river were frequently shaded with immense
willows, and the trees of the cultivated lands were numerous
and of great size. Many new forms of plants were
also seen, though the general character of the flora was
unaltered. Shrubby Artemisia were extremely plentiful,
and the PerowsMa, Ballota, Echinops, and Iris of
the Indus valley were very abundant. The new plants
were all species of Kashmir or Iskardo, such as Verbas-
cum Thapsus, Lappa, Valeriana, Swertia, and Gentiana
Moorcroftiana. Trifolium repens and fragiferum grew
in the pastures close to the river, and tropical species of
Setaria and Amaranthus were common weeds in the cornfields.
In the immediate neighbourhood of Pashkyum the
rocks consist of coarse-grained grey or white sandstones,
often containing small water-worn pebbles, and
alternating with dark crumbling pyritiferous shales. These
rocks, which dip to the east or south-east, at an angle of
not more than 15°, rise on the north side of the valley to
the summit of a long sloping ridge, which appears to
overhang the Indus. As these sandstones and shales
contained,, so far as I could observe, no fossils, their age
is a matter of complete uncertainty. They were quite
independent of the modern lacustrine formation, patches
of which, perfectly horizontally stratified, and therefore
unconformable to the other, were seen in several places
rest!rig on the sandstone. These sandstones perhaps
reach as far as the Indus, but I was not able to determine
how far they extended to the southward, in which
direction high and rugged mountains, now covered with
snow, skirted the valley at a distance of a few miles.
On the 23rd of September, I followed the Pashkyum
river to its junction with that of Dras. Crossing, at
starting, to the left bank of the river, the road lay for a
mile through cultivated lands; it then ascended to a platform
of alluvium, which blocked up the valley, while the
river disappeared in a narrow ravine far to the right.
Pive miles from Pashkyum, I descended very abruptly