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Stones of silence: journeys in the Himalaya

By: Contributor(s): Material type: TextTextPublication details: New York The Viking Press 1980Description: 292p.: ill.; photoISBN:
  • 0670671401
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 915.4045 SCH
Summary: The mountains of the Himalaya, from the lushly forested slopes of Nepal to the barren ranges of Central Asia, offer solitude, enlightenment, and incredible beauty, as well as the brutal reality of barren peaks and wind-torn slopes and glaciers. They are al lost world of nameless valleys, of people liv ing in the Middle Ages, of travel by yak caravan. To field biologist George Schaller, the Himalaya is all this, and yet it is more, forming as it does the habitat of the world's greatest variety of wild sheep and goats markhor, urial, bharal, and other spectacu lar animals-as well as the elusive snow leopard. Over a period of six years Dr. Schaller ex plored this awesome mountain range (one journey was the subject Peter Matthies sen's The Snow Leopard) in order to study the fascinating but increasingly rare wild life of the area and to determine what loca tions would make good reserves and national parks. His entertaining and informative ac count of his travel and work in various re mote areas also evokes an aura of the past, of a way of life now alien to Western civili zation. Just as the outside influences of the last quarter century are taking their toll of the wildlife of the region, so are they chang ing the culture of the people who have lived there for centuries. Stones of Silence, in ad dition to its value as a study of the fauna and flora of the mountains, is a rare glimpse of a vanishing civilization. This is a story of high adventure, intro spection, observation, and discovery. It is primarily about the Himalaya and the peo ple and animals that live in it. However, as Dr. Schaller notes, in the mountains "one becomes an explorer in an intellectual realm as well as in the physical one, and the follow ing pages include some of my lonely thoughts born of windswept mountain passes." It is a story told in the words of a poet, yet seen through the eyes of a scientist, as he struggles to save this mountain world from turning to stones of silence.
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photographs by George B. Schaller

The mountains of the Himalaya, from the lushly forested slopes of Nepal to the barren ranges of Central Asia, offer solitude, enlightenment, and incredible beauty, as well as the brutal reality of barren peaks and wind-torn slopes and glaciers. They are al lost world of nameless valleys, of people liv ing in the Middle Ages, of travel by yak caravan. To field biologist George Schaller, the Himalaya is all this, and yet it is more, forming as it does the habitat of the world's greatest variety of wild sheep and goats markhor, urial, bharal, and other spectacu lar animals-as well as the elusive snow leopard.

Over a period of six years Dr. Schaller ex plored this awesome mountain range (one journey was the subject Peter Matthies sen's The Snow Leopard) in order to study the fascinating but increasingly rare wild life of the area and to determine what loca tions would make good reserves and national parks. His entertaining and informative ac count of his travel and work in various re mote areas also evokes an aura of the past, of a way of life now alien to Western civili zation. Just as the outside influences of the last quarter century are taking their toll of the wildlife of the region, so are they chang ing the culture of the people who have lived there for centuries. Stones of Silence, in ad dition to its value as a study of the fauna and flora of the mountains, is a rare glimpse of a vanishing civilization.

This is a story of high adventure, intro spection, observation, and discovery. It is primarily about the Himalaya and the peo ple and animals that live in it. However, as Dr. Schaller notes, in the mountains "one becomes an explorer in an intellectual realm as well as in the physical one, and the follow ing pages include some of my lonely thoughts born of windswept mountain passes."

It is a story told in the words of a poet, yet seen through the eyes of a scientist, as he struggles to save this mountain world from turning to stones of silence.

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