Himalayan Journals — Volume 1 by J. D. (Joseph Dalton) Hooker
page 49 of 417 (11%)
page 49 of 417 (11%)
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Mango, and _Ficus infectoria._ These are all scattered, however, and
do not form forest, such as in a stunted form clothes the hills, consisting of _Diospyros, Terminalia, Gmelina, Nauclea parvifolia, Buchanania,_ etc. The rocks are still hornblende-schist and granite, with a covering of alluvium, full of quartz pebbles. Insects and birds are numerous, the latter consisting of jays, crows, doves, sparrows, and maina (_Pastor_); also the _Phoenicophaus tristis_ ("Mahoka" of the natives), with a note like that of the English cuckoo, as heard late in the season. I remained two days with Lieutenant Beadle, enjoying in his society several excursions to the hot springs, etc. These springs (called Soorujkoond) are situated close to the road, near the mouth of a valley, in a remarkably pretty spot. They are, of course, objects of worship; and a ruined temple stands close behind them, with three very conspicuous trees--a peepul, a banyan, and a white, thick-stemmed, leafless _Sterculia,_ whose branches bore dense clusters of greenish foetid flowers. The hot springs are four in number, and rise in as many ruined brick tanks about two yards across. Another tank, fed by a cold spring, about twice that size, flows between two of the hot, only two or three paces distant from one of the latter on either hand. All burst through the gneiss rocks, meet in one stream after a few yards, and are conducted by bricked canals to a pool of cold water, about eighty yards off. The temperatures of the hot springs were respectively 169 degrees, 170 degrees, 173 degrees, and 190 degrees; of the cold, 84 degrees at 4 p.m., and 75 degrees at 7 a.m. the following morning. The hottest is the middle of the five. The water of the cold spring is sweet but not good, and emits gaseous bubbles; it was covered with a green |
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