[Sidenote: FOUNTAIN OF VERNAG. _May, 1848._]
From Shahabad I made, on the 7th, a short march to Vernag, a celebrated fountain near the bottom of the Banahal pass. Crossing the river, the road lay up the open valley of the Jelam, still among rice-fields, rising step by step behind one another, as the valley sloped upwards. Vernag lies close to the mouth of a little lateral valley, up which our further course lay. The fountain, which is built of marble, is large, contains many fish, and supplies a considerable stream. It is the reputed source of the Behat or Jelam, but the main branch of that river descends from the mountains a good way further to the south-west. The hills on both sides of the Shahabad valley are of limestone, the strike of which seemed to be west-south-west, or nearly in the direction of the valley. It is very much indurated, and its colour is bluish-grey; it has all the appearance of having been much altered by heat. The dip appeared different on the opposite sides of the valley: on the north it was east of north, on the other side southerly; the inclination of the beds varied much, and they were often very much distorted. I did not see any eruption of igneous rock on any part of the day's journey.
On the hills above Vernag there was a good deal of brushwood, consisting chiefly of _Fothergilla involucrata_, two species of _Viburnum_, _Cotoneaster_, _Lonicera_, and a few trees of _Pinus excelsa_, yew, and deodar. The opposite hills were bare and grassy. In the forests of Kashmir (as was first pointed out by Dr. Falconer) we do not find the oak, _Andromeda_, and _Rhododendron_, which are so abundant at similar elevations in the outer Himalaya. The appearance of the woods is, therefore, remarkably different, as these trees, which, in the temperate zone of the mountains near the plains, constitute almost all the forest, give the woods there a peculiar character.
On the 8th of May I passed from the valley of Kashmir into the basin of the Chenab, crossing the Banahal pass, the summit of which is not more than 10,000 feet above the sea: it is a very narrow ridge, separating two deep valleys. Starting through rice-fields, and passing at the upper limit of cultivation a few fields of barley and rape, I soon entered brushwood, the same as on the hills above Vernag. In the ravines on the left hand, snow descended below 7000 feet. Ascending rapidly on a ridge, the brushwood gave place to a fine wood of maple, horse-chesnut, cherry, hazel, and elm, all just bursting into leaf. The dip of the limestone rocks was exceedingly variable, at one time southerly, at another northerly, but the strike was, I believe, the same as the day before. The ascent continuing rapid, the shady side of the ridge was soon covered with snow; but the road kept on the southern exposure, which was sometimes bare of forest. Birch at last appeared among the other trees, and, as the elevation increased, it began to predominate. About the same time, the limestone gave place to a slaty rock, which was almost immediately followed by an amygdaloid, which continued to the summit. Both the slate and the limestone appeared to have been upheaved by the igneous rock, and I thought the slate seemed inferior to the limestone.