[[1]]
Silchar (Cachar District)
E[ast] Bengal
Nov. 26 / [18]50
Dear [Charles Robert] Darwin
I am now & have been for some time a letter in your debt but feel so near home at
last that my correspondence naturally slackens.
Master Falconer *1 is at his tricks again with my letters, & has not forwarded me one
for this 6 mails, so that I am all adrift about home & love & all that sort of thing.
What an incomprehensible fellow F[alconer] is in this failings & how charming in
every other point -- after leaving Calcutta [Kolkata] last april-- every thing went as
regular as clockwork for 3 months, & since then he neither answers one of my
letters, nor forwards me my English, though I reiterate my address weekly, & send
him seeds plants & roots galore. -- My dying effort is to tell him my Father has sent,
me no new remittance; or if so, he (F[alconer]) has he has the letter & money & I am
starving, whether this will bring him to his sense or no I can't tell; I have exhausted all
argument & persuasion to no avail.
[[2]] I should not quite say he sends me nothing -- for to day arrived an English
Parcel with some rubbishy proofs of Victoria Regia from Mr Reeves , which I don't
care one rush about & have given away forthwith:-- no letter from Falconer with it,
nor one of my overlands *2 of 3 months. Colvile *3 tells me has (F[alconer]) has both
letters & parcels & is sending them -- but that was weeks ago --.
I left the curious Khassya [Khasi] Mts a fortnight ago & am on my way to the frontier
Mts of Munnipore, for a few days, when I drop down the Soormah via Sylhet to the
Megna & so to the sea & Chittagong --There I shall spend a few weeks botanizing,
going down the coast if I can to Arracan & the mud volcanoes of the Arkyab, &
thence across to Calcutta & so home after a month in Ceylon [Sri Lanka] before the
middle year.
This route will enable me to connect the Flora of the Himalayah, with the Khassya
(Garrow & Jyntea) hills, that with the AEng[?] range which runs from E[ast] Cachar
South to Cape Negrais -- I shall also have seen the vegetation of the
[[3]] dry Mts & plains of Behar, of the Morung Forests & Terai at the foot of the Himal.
of the Jheels & fresh water deltas of the Ganges & Megna, of the sea--coast & of the
salt marshes & Sooderbunds. I hope that having seen these in connection will be an
advantage, & now I turn about & feel myself fully alive to the advantages I have
enjoyed & half as much as to my shortcomings -- the said half being overwhelming I
shall think no more.
In Geology I fear my results are but poor, indeed the grander features of the science
to which my eyes are but opening are sufficiently conclusive against my being able
to grasp any thing but details. In this country of enormous plains & no less
conspicuous mountains the magnitude of the causes favours too much speculation.
Denudation is at present my bug-bear -- it is impossible to deny the evidence of its
having controlled every feature from the greatest elevation downwards, & where to
draw the line between it's action, & that of upheaval, appears very difficult. : The
loftiest summits appear to have lost miles of matter in thickness, & the thickest series
to have been once thicker.
I have been puzzling over what you say of double Mt chains, & of the posterior
elevation of,
[[4]] that intersected by the water--courses, whether the most lofty or no. I can quite
fancy its being as you say & can suppose good reasons for it--but I have never seen
a double mt. chain. There is however a difficulty in defining a "Mt: chain" & I can
understand such a feature as a different thing from a "chain of Mts." without any play
upon words. Geological upheaval or depression may produce a chain of Mts.--the
action of water may too, but sequence of geological composition will not entitle an
elevated area to the term in all cases, & if waters may flow through Mt chains it
would appear as if physical geography & geology were at cross purposes. I suppose
that the axis of a Mt chain is always the line from either side of wh[ich]. the waters
flow in opposite directions, such a line is never straight, always zigzag, the waters
flow from the reentrant angles but the most elevated Peaks may or may not head
them-- in the Himalaya the elevated Peaks are on the spurs from the main axis & not
on the line of mean greatest elevation I shall try to illustrate my difficulty by a sketch-Let A.B be the axis, cc. are the [a labelled sketch of rivers appears here]
rivers given off from the reentrant angles e,e, are spurs from the same main axis-- Let
ooo. represent Peaks on the spurs e, reaching a much greater
[[5]] elevation than any part of the zigzag line AB -- would you then call the an
imaginary line through o1 o2 o3 the axis of the chain -- Geologically you cannot fix this
in the Himal. for o1. may be a granite cap protruding. from o2. a granite nucleus
covered with Gniess & o3. these rocks with Limestone over all.-- The first o1 may be
highest, though geologically the lowest, & denudation may have removed the
superior strata from o1 & o2.-- The Himal. represents much such a chain, the line in all
our maps is drawn through o.o.o. partly because these isolated peaks are (albeit
only for aught we know) the loftiest, & partly because being they are snowed down to
15,000 on their south flank, while the line AB. is not snowed at 19000,--but most of
all because the subsidiary spurs from ooo cross one another, appearing as a continuous
Mt line & all behind is hid from the observer in India.-- Not one of the great Himal
rivers has its source in any of these great Mts.., all hove from far behind it, & whether
you actually travel across the Snows to Thibet [Tibet] & find yourself with the Snows
far astern & the river heads & Mts still before, or whether you take a birds eye glance
of 200 miles of the Snows from 150--200 miles off, as I have been doing from the
Khassya Mts the result appears the same to me, that the great snows do not form a
chain (in latitude) per se, but are snowed portions of meridional spurs from an axis of
mean greater elevation behind, from which said axis every drop of water that flows
South flows past all the Snows. i.e. rises from far behind them & not even from their
N[orth]. flank
[[6]] I am further impressed with the idea that the said meridional spurs are the crests
of great geological waves of gneiss from the prevalence of a strike at an oblique angle
with the meridian throughout all we know of the Himal. It is quite a fallacy to suppose
that after passing the Snows, (the Ghats, & Passes as they are called) you begin to
descend & still greater that you come on a plateau, (table--land, or most fallacious of
all a plain) of Thibet. Comparatively level spots occur it is true & of considerable area
but they are few & far between, the great roads of course lead to & over them, & the
mass of the country between the Snows & Tsampu river is a chaos of Mts rugged &
uninhabitable, separated by flat floored valleys along which the rivers wind.
The decomposition of the more recent rocks which only appear behind the snows,
where the mean greatest mass is, (ie that which may have been removed by
denudation from the isolated Peaks & meridional spurs of equal or greater elevation),
produces a flatter surface in many places & over considerable area, but the Mts
behind when are of slate & primitive rocks Gneiss &c are as rugged & impracticable as
what we call the Himal, & when of Limestone no less so. It is not a little curious that
the greatest display of tertiary formations in these regions should be where the land
attains its greatest elevation in mass, & that there the surface should be most even,
as on the plains N[orth]. of Phari crossed by Turner, the Cholamo district I visited,
that of Tingri (N[orth] of Nepal) the
[[7]] Mansarovar where Strachey was & a few others; & that there the rivers flow
more tranquilly, but leaving there, the rivers flow in Mt gorges in Thibet as well as in
the Himal., as the Indus, Sutledge or other rivers in the N[orth].W[est]. & the Arun &c
in the more central districts.
In one other point they all agree;--from the bend of the Indus to that of the Dihong
(which I believe to be the Burrampooter [Brahmaputra]),--a total disregard of the
snowy Himal: which they all cut through & take tribute from as they pass.-- Now I do
not know whether you could demonstrate the line of loftiest peaks to be geologically
a chain parallel to the axis, & ergo the Himal to be double: it seems to me opposed
to the principles of pure geography to do so, that though there my principles are very
shaky & perhaps pure humbug.
It is very captivating to run chains of Mts from Canton to the Caspian & Caucasus,
but I cannot help thinking that there is no such real geographical line of Mts, just &
that the said line indicates no geological connexion between the said places. I can
fancy Asia divided by a line dividing the waters that flow to the Pole from what do to
the tropic, or better by what flow east from what flow west, but & I should doubt the
Himal being the a part of the axis of Asia (isolated as it is by 2 such rivers as the
Indus & Burrampooter,) for the same reasons as I think are opposed to the idea that
the line of snows represents the axis of the Himal[.]
I was so glad to see your name at the Brit[ish]: Assoc[iatio]n again & that the
Barnacles are feathering[?]--these things bring hosts of associations with them. you
are well
[[8]] enough for that any how & that is a comfort for me to know[.]
The Khassya & Jyntea Botany was so engrossing & rich that I had little time for any
but rock geology, & have sections of the Mts but I fear very poor-- I could not get one
day to search for Mc Lellands fossil beach nor a soul who knew where to dig.-- I
found erect, or rather perpendicular, roots evident in the under clay of the coal, but
no fossils to speak of -- The Khassya are a charming miniature Himal. & just fancy
my seeing a Snowy Mt in Thibet from 210 miles off! the same I saw when in Thibet
last October 12 month. From one spot on the Khassya I believe the limits of my view
N[orth] W[est]. & S[outh].E[ast]. spanned 400 miles Imagine[?] seeing from Dover to
Arthurs Seat!-I shall not forget the Barnacles at Chittagong.-- How little we know of Bot[anical]
geography -- Thomson & I have 22 species of Oak, all from below 5000 ft some from
that of 60 (sixty) on the plains at the foot of the hills. Birch, Rhododendron, Camellia,
Willow Horse chestnut & eatable do. Pines & I dont know what all that I
considered types of a temperate climate from a blazing Indian tropic 1--2000 ft.
Palms & Tree--ferns from 6--7000 ft[.] Was I not right in saying that before the
geologist had any right to legislate for climates to suit the scraps of fossils called
plants? some one should examine such regions as these. How I laugh now to think
that of the few data I would have allowed Geologists 3 years ago, that of calling
Acorns evidences of a temperate climate would have been the most graciously
conceded. Yet here are several species bordering these vast swamps actually only
60 ft above the sea with so many Tigers Rhinocerosses wild Elephants Alligators &c
about that all will be fossilized together with Palms Tree--ferns Camellia leaves & I
do not know what all. By the way the Bactrian camel is abundant in Thibet & is used
to the most rigorous weather & elevations. Tame elephants are kept at Shigatzi &
Lhassa for show, these were taken from Bengal across passes of 16000 ft they are
well clothed & fed -- Shigatzi is a most rigorous climate & elevation of perhaps
14000 ft.
I had a tremendous yarn for you but cannot go on now about the boulders of the
Khassya, as wonderful as are ice transported & of vast dimensions, piled like glacial
phenomena, but I am positive they are the result of denuadation, & not glacial at all *4
I hope to see you before you can have time to answer this even were it worth an
answer, -- best remembrances to Mrs Darwin & the children -- & to all old friends
especially to Lyell. Affect[ionatel]y yours Jos D. Hooker [signature] *5
ENDNOTES
1. Hugh Falconer.
2. refers to mail route to India.
3. James William Covile.
4. The text is written vertically in the margin between pages 6 and 7.
5. The text is written vertically in the margin of page 1.
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