Item 15 - Letter from Joseph Dalton Hooker to Brian Houghton Hodgson

1 letter

Nampoh Teesta May [8] [1849]

Dear Hodgson
I write again sooner than I expected to have done [for?] the food coolies having overtaken me already. Nothing remarkable has turned up in any way the coolies behave remarkably well and my camp appears all in good order. The people long the road are as civil as they were when the Rajah so willed it. Those of the lower parts of the valley are much darker and more Limbu like Bhoteas than any I have seen. I am sure they are transition Mongols from transmain to Terai. Still the women and genuine Bhotea, their habitations are very low and terribly hot. I came along another very remarkable dead flat for 2 miles yesterday along the [?] and full 50ft above its level. I doubt not the floor of this valley when the latter was an arm of the Sea. Tendong I quite believe to be an [eruptish?] Mt of its porphyry which has thrown up the clay slate and [mire?] etc. the [rocks?] of the latter dip various ways round the top, when above the Quartz a sort of fine grained Porphyry is found. Hence though the general mass of Himal is owing to the great granite [outburst?] of the central chain, the individual hills and ranges of the SubHimal may be the effects of isolated throes and eruptions antecedent of [paterin] or both to having no direct relation in this finished state to the central chain. Eg. the great throb may have sent up the slates etc of Tendong to a mean level, say of 6000ft and a [succeeding?] local [outburst?] of Quartz porphyry thrown all up still higher and protruded as its conical top. This sundry action as I am tried to explain to you may have so shaken the position of all the strata, that now no relation is [?] to its great range is [preserved?]. I take 2 throes for Tendong but why were there not 10,000 successive ones? a hypoth far more concurrent with [?] upheaving forces each shaking and disturbing not only Tendong but an indefinite area around it. It is evident that no two successive throes will similarly effect the same place for the forces overcome by the first will give place to a rise to other resistances for the 2nd to try on. I am getting on well with my Journal and hope to send it to you soon. I have asked Campbell to send me a bundle of Nepal paper from my room which please let my people put up and take to Campbell for transmission. How gets on Tayler best regards to him. Don't forget to tell me what you think of my picture

Every yr. affectionate
Jos. D. Hooker