uniform in appearance. They vary much in thickness,
but are on the whole much thicker and more remarkable
in the upper part of the ravine, where (on the east
side) a mass of clay, not less than five or six hundred
feet in thickness, has accumulated, forming steep sloping
or quite perpendicular banks, which at the top are worn
away into pinnacles, and excavated into deep grooves and
hollows, I presume by the action of melting snow. The
fragments of rock which it contained were all angular, or
at most a very little worn at the edges.
Five or six miles from Sungnam, the road left the
course of the ravine, and began rapidly to ascend the
steep spur which bounded it on the left. At first we
followed a fissure in the clay conglomerate, which still
had a thickness of nearly two hundred feet. Above,
the ridge was rocky and very steep. When we had
attained a sufficient height to overlook the valley by
which we had ascended from Sungnam, I was able to
estimate better than while in. the ravine, the extent of
the clay deposit. It was now seen to occupy both sides
of the valley, and to be pretty equally diffused throughout,
but certainly thicker on the left or eastern side,—
in the upper part at least, for low down, just behind
Sungnam, it capped a round sloping hill of considerable
elevation to the right of the little streamlet and
of the road. The valley did not narrow at the lower
extremity, where it debouched into that of the Ruskalan,
so much as to give any reason for supposing that it could
have been closed by a barrier, so as to form a lake. Indeed,
the absolute elevation of the conglomerate was so
great at the upper end of the valley, that it would be necessary
to suppose a barrier several thousand feet above
the bed of the Ruskalan to produce such an effect. The
greater thickness of the conglomerate in the upper part
of the ravine, and the almost complete angularity of the
fragments, were equally opposed to such a view. Nor
was I able to form any probable conjecture as to the
mode in which these accumulations had been formed.
In the earlier part of the day’s journey, the rock,
where exposed, was invariably clay-slate, not different
in appearance from that whieh, commencing at Lipa,
had been observed on every part of the Runang ridge.
It dipped generally at a high angle, but was often much
contorted. In the upper part of the ravine, thick beds
of a hard cherty quartz rock alternated with the slate;
and in the course of the last steep ascent, at an elevation
of about 13,500 feet, the first limestone was observed.
It was of a dark blue colour, very hard, coarsely stratified,
and much veined with white calcareous spar. It
seemed to dip at a high angle towards the north-east.
The ridge by which we ascended was quite bare of
trees and exceedingly barren, producing very little vegetation
of any sort, and no novelty, till we had almost
attained an elevation of 14,000 feet. We then observed
bushes of a species of Caragana ((7 . versicolor), the Dama
of the Tibetans, a very curious stunted shrub, which is
very extensively distributed at elevations which no other
woody plants attain, and which, therefore, is much
prized and extensively used as fuel. I had not met with
it before, nor does it appear to extend at all into the
wooded region of the Himalaya. We encamped on a
flat piece of ground at 14,000 feet. Notwithstanding
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