bi district - Lacheepia rock - Extreme cold - Kinchinjunga - Himalayan grouse - Meteorological observations - Return to Lachoong - Oaks - Ascent to Yeumtong - Flats and debacles -

r - Appearance of Tibet - Kambajong - Jigatzi - Kinchinjhow, and Kinchinjunga - Chola range - Deceptive appearance of distant landscape - Perpetual snow - Granit

ishing glacier, at whose base or flanks are concentric ridges, which are successive deposits.] and composed of enormous blocks disintegrating into a deep layer of clay. All are clothed with luxuriant herbage and flowering shrubs,* [Ranunculus, Clematis, Thalictrum, Anemone, Aconitum variegatum of Europe, a scandent species, Berberry, Deutzia, Philadelphus, Rose, Honeysuckle, Thistles, Orchis, Habenaria, Fritillaria, Aster, Calimeris, Verbascum thapsus, Pedicularis, Euphrasia, Senecio, Eupatorium, Dipsacus, Euphorbia, Balsam, Hypericum, Gentiana, Halenia, Codonopsis, Polygonum.] besides small larches and pines, rhododendrons

from the forest, vast old moraines are crossed, in a shallow mountain valley, several miles long and broad, 12,000 feet above the sea, choked with rhododendron shrubs, and nearly encircled by snowy mountains. Magnificent gentians grew here, also Senecio, Corydalis, and the Aconitum luridum (n. sp.), whose root is said to be as virulent as A. ferox and A. Napellus.* [The result of Dr. Thomson's and my examination of the Himplayan aconites (of which there are seven species) i

peak of Tunkra being to our left hand (north). Saxifrages grew here in profuse tufts of golden blossoms, and Chrysosplenium, rushes, mountain-sorrel (Oxyria), and the bladder-heade

terly cold, the temperature being 39 degrees. At 15,000 feet we passed from great snowbeds to the surface of a glacier, partly an accumulation of snow, increased by lateral glaciers: its slope

different than the two slopes of this pass; that by which I had come presented a gentle snowy acclivity, bounded by precipitous mountains; while that which opened before me was a steep, rocky, broad, grassy valley, where not a particle of snow was to be seen, and yaks were feeding near a small lake not 1000 feet down. Nor were snowy mounta

ozen to 300 houses each, varying with the season and state of trade. The latter is considerable, Phari being, next to Dorjiling, the greatest Tibetan, Bhotan, Sikkim, and Indian entrepot along the whole Himalaya east of Nepal. The general form of Choombi valley is triangular, the broader end northwards: it is bounded by the Chola range on the west from Donkia to Gipmoochi, and by the Kamphee or Chakoong range to the east; w

of the Bhotan mountains and the form of the Machou valley cut off the rains, and there is no dense forest. It is very mountainous, all carriage being on men's and yaks' backs

struggle between the Sikkim and Bhotan monks for superiority in it, the abbot died. His avatar reappeared in two places at once! in Bhotan as a relative of the Paro-Pilo himself, and in Sikkim as a brother of the powerful Gangtok Kajee. Their disputes were referred to the Dalai Lama, who pronounced for Sikkim. This was not to be disputed by the Pilo, who, however, plundered the Goompa of its

nopolised there for the Chinese troops at Lhassa. The grazing for yaks and small cattle is excellent in Choombi, and the Pinus ex

e only others were Leontopodium, Sedum, Saxifrage, Ramunculus hyperboreus, Ligularia, two species of Polygonum, a Trichostomum, Stereocaulon, and Lecidea geographica, not one grass or sedge.] The wind was variable, blowing alternately up both valleys, bringing much snow when it bl

to eighty feet high, and 15,250 feet above the sea; it was of gneiss, and was placed on the top of a bleak ridge, facing the north; no shrub or bush being near it. The gentle slope outwards of the rock afforded the only shelter, and a more utterly desolate place than Lac

n-tops; but the view obtained was transient, for in less than an hour the dense woolly banks of fog which choked the valleys ascended like a curtain to the warmed atmosphere above, and slowly threw a veil over the landscape. I waited till the last streak of snow was shut out from my view, when

y alluded to in the Appendix, where will be found a comparison of elevations, deduced from boiling point and from barometric observations. The height of Lacheepia is 14,912 feet by boiling-point, and 15,262 feet by barometer.] Little rain fell during the day, but it was heavy at night, though there was fortunately no wind; and I made a more comfortable bed with tufts of juniper brought up from below. Our fire was principally of wet rhododendron wood, with masses of the aromatic dwarf species, which, being full of resinous glands, blazed with fury. Next day, after a very transient glimpse of the Kinchinjunga snows, I descended to Lachoong, where I remained for some days botanizing. During my

; in the North Himalaya, on the other hand, an oak (Quercus semecarpifolia, see vol. i., chapter viii) is amongst the most alpine trees, and the nut is a different species, more resembling the European. On the outer Sikkim ranges oaks (Q. annulata?) ascend to 10,000 feet, and there is no hazel. Above the fork, the valley contracts extremely, and its bed is covered with moraines and landslip

s; some of these debacles were 400 yards across, and sloped at an angle of 2 degrees to 3 degrees, bearing on their surfaces blocks fifteen yards in diameter.* [None were to be compared in size and extent with that at Bex, at the mouth of the

in which the river meanders at the rate of three and a half miles an hour, and sudden descents, cumbered with old moraines, over which it rushes in sheets of Loam. Silver-firs ascend nearly to 13,000 feet, where they are replaced by large junipers, sixty feet high: up the valley Chango Khang is seen, with a superb glacier descending to about 14,000 feet on its south flank. Enormous masses of rock were continually precipitated from the west side,

point. These beds of snow, however broad and convex, cannot nevertheless be distinguished from glaciers: they occupy, it is true, mountain slopes, and do not fill hollows (like glaciers commonly so called), but they display the ribboned structure of ice, and being viscous fluids, descend at a rate and to a distance depending on the slope, and on t

ees, and 106 degrees in the bath.* [This water boiled at 191.6 degrees, the same at which snow-water and that of the river did; giving an elevation of 11,730 feet. Observations on the mineral constituents of the water will be found in the Appendix.] The water has a slightly saline taste; it is colour

gtam, and who was a civil, industrious fellow, though he had procured me little besides a huge monkey, which had nearly bitten off the head of his best dog. I had made a point of consulting the Soubah before hiring him, for fear of accidents; but this did not scr

, and finding them supremely indifferent, returned to be my guide. A month's provision for ten men having arrived from Dorjiling, I left Yeumtong the fo

fine-grained granite, stained red with a minute conferva, which has been taken by Himalayan travellers for red snow;* [Red snow was never found in the Antarctic r

have elsewhere seen, both in extent, in the size of the boulders, and in the height to which the latter are piled on one another. Many boulders I measured we

et, trees and shrubs cease, willow and honeysuckle being the last; and thence onward the valley is bleak, open, and stony, with lofty rocky mountains on either side. The south wind brought a cold drizzling rain, which numbed

how, and seven south-west of Donkia: it is in the same latitude as Palung, but scarcely so lofty. The mean of fifty-six barometrical observations contemporaneous with

, grassy on the base near the river; distant snowy peaks, stupendous precipices, moraines, glaciers, transported boulders, and rocks rounded by glacial action, formed the dismal landscape which ever

at this point must have been twelve miles, and it must have extended east and west from Chango Khang across the main valley, to beyond Donkia. Still the great moraines are wanting at this particular point, and though atmospheric action and the rivers have removed perhaps 200 feet of glacial shingle, they can hardly have destroyed a moraine of rocks, large enough to block up the valley.] Another tributary falls into the Lachoong at Momay, which leads eastwards up to an enormous glacier that descends from Donkia. Snowy mountains rise nearly all round it: those on its south and east divide Sikkim from the Phari province in Tibet; those on the north terminate in a forked or cleft peak, which is a remarkable and conspicuous feature from Momay. This, which I have called forked Donkia,* [I

e boulders perched on their summits. Though manifestly rounded and grooved by ancient glaciers, I failed to find scratches on these weather-worn rocks.* [I have repeatedly, and equally in vain, sought for scratchings on many of the most conspicuously moutonneed gneiss rocks of Switzerland. The retention of suc

ded into hills and valleys; also the whole broad open Upper Rhone valley, above the village of Munster, and below that of Obergestelen. The action of broad glaciers on gentle slopes is to raise their own beds by the accumulation of gravel which their lower surface carries and pushes forward. I have seen small glaciers thus raised 300 feet; leaving little doubt in my mind that the upper Himalayan valleys were thus choked with deposit 1000 feet thick, of which indeed the proofs remain along the flanks of the Yangma valley. The denuding and accumulating effects of ice thus give a contour to mountain valleys, and sculpture their flanks and floors far more rapidly than sea action, or the elements. After a very extensive experience of ice in the Antarctic ocean, and in mountainous countries, I cannot but conclude that very few of our geologists appreciate the power of ice as a mechanical agent, which can hardly be over-estimated, whether as glacier, iceberg, or pack ice, heaping shingle along coasts.We are still very ignorant of many details of ice action, and especially of the origin of many enormous deposits which are not true moraines. These, so conspicuous in the lofty Himalayan v

ghly favourable for observations, I determined to remain here during the equinoctial month, and put my people on "two-thirds allowance," i.e., four pounds of rice daily for three men, allowing them to send down the valley to cater for what more they could get. The Singtam Soubah was intensely disgusted with my determination: he accompanied me next day to the pass, and having exhausted his persuasions, threats, and warnings about snow, win

[On one occasion I ascended this valley, which is very broad, flat, and full of lakes at different elevations; one, at about 17,000 feet elevation is three-quarters of a mile long, but not deep: no water-plants grew in it, but there were plenty of others round its margin. I collected, in the dry bed of a stream near it, a curious white substance like thick felt, formed of felspathic silt (no doubt the product of glacial streams) and the siliceous cells of infusoriae. It much resembles the fossil or meteoric paper of Germany, which is also formed of the lowest tribes of fresh-water plants, though considered by Ehrenberg as of animal origin. A vein of granite in the bottom of the valley had completely altered the character of the gneiss, which contained veins of jasper and masse

itous snowy peaks, and a very fatiguing ascent (at this elevation) leads to the sharp rocky summit of the Donkia pass, 18,466 feet above the sea by barometer, and 17,866 by boiling-point. The view on this occasion w

t high, these mountains were wholly unsnowed. Beyond this range lay the broad valley of the Arun, and in the extreme north-west distance, to the north of Nepal, were some immense snowy mountains, reduced to mere specks on the horizon. The valley of the Arun was bounded on the north by very precipitous black rocky mountains, sprinkled with snow; beyond these again, from north to north-west, snow-topped range rose over range in the clear purple distance. The nearer of these was the Kiang-lah, which forms the axis or water-shed of this meridian; its south drainage being to the Arun river, and its north to the Yaru-tsampu: it ap

CHOLAMOO LAKE FROM TH

OKING NO

eet above the mean level of the Arun valley, and perfectly bare of perpetual snow or glaciers. Rocks everywhere broke out on their flanks, and often along their tops, but the general contour of that immense area was very open and undulating, like the great ranges of Central Asia, described by MM. Huc and Gabet. Beyond this again, the

glaciers dipped abruptly towards its head, but on its west bank a lofty brick-red spur slope

which is also crossed, and is 18,500 feet, the others may be very lofty indeed. The distance from Donkia pass to Jigatzi is said to be ten days' journey for loaded yaks. Now, according to Turner's observations (evidently taken with great care) that capital is in latitude 29 degrees 4 minutes 20 seconds north, or only seventy miles north of Donkia; and as the yak travels at the rate of sixteen miles a day, the country must be extraordinarily rugged, or the valleys tortuous. Turner took eight or nine days on his journey from Phari to Teshoo Loombo, a distance of only eighty miles; yet he is quoted as an authority for the fact of Tibet being a plain! he certainly crossed an undulating country, probably 16,OOO to 17,000 feet high; a continuation eastwards of the

istance, 3000 to 4000 feet above the pass. A little south of it, and north of Chango Khang, the view extends through a gap in the Sebolah range, across the valley of the Lachen, to Kinchinjunga, distant forty-two miles. The monarch of mountains looked quite small and low from this point, and it was difficul

re are sunk far below the horizon: on comparing these with the northern landscape, the wonderful difference between their respective snow-levels, am

to be the case. Unsnowed and apparently low mountains touched the horizon line of the telescope; which proves that, if only 37 miles off, they must, from the dip of the horizon, be at least 1000 feet higher than the observer's position. The same infallible guide cuts off mountain-tops and deeply snowed ridges, which to the unaided eye appear far lower than the point from which they are viewed; but which, from the quantity of snow on them, must be many thousand feet higher, and, from the angle they subtend in the instrument, mu

ascended Donkia to upwards of 19,000 feet before I found the rocks crusted with ice,* [Snow, transformed into ice throughout its whole mass: in short, glacial ice in all physical characters.] and the ground wholly frozen. I assume, therefore, that 19,000 feet at this spot is not below the mean level at which all the snow melts that falls on a fair exposure to the south: this probably coincides with a mean temperature of 20 degrees. Forty miles further north (in Tibet) the same line is probably at 20,000 feet; for there much less snow falls, and much more melts in proportion.* [Two secondary considerations materially affecting the melting of snow, and hence exerting a material influence on the elevation of the snow-line, appear to me never to have been sufficiently dwelt upon. Both, however, bear directly upon the great elevation of the snow-line in Tibet. From the imperfect transmission of the heating rays of the sun through films of water, which transmit perfectly the luminous rays, it follows that the direct effects of the rays, in clear sunshine, are very different at

the fact of its being always bitterly cold to the feelings. This is no doubt due to the warmth of the ascending

m.: Temp. 41.8 degree

grees, Tension 0.1

m.: Temp. 49.2 degree

grees, Tension 0.2

m.: Temp. 40.1 degree

grees, Tension 0.1

ivalent to 1 degree Fahr. I left a minimum thermometer on the summit on the 9th of September, and removed it on the 27th, but it had been lifted and turned over by the action of the frost

boiling-point was 181.3 degrees, and on the 27th, 181.2 degrees. In both observations, I believe the kettle communicated a higher temperature to the thermometer than that of the water, for the elevations deduced are far to

lichens grow on the top, as Cladonia vermicularis, the yellow Lecidea geographica, and the orange L. miniata;* [This is one of the most Arctic, Antarctic, and universally diffused plants. The other lichens were Lecidea atro-alba, oreina, elegans, and chlorophana, all alpine European and Arctic species. At 17,000 feet occur Lecanora ven

betan describe it as the loftiest, coldest, windiest, and most barren country in the world. Were it buried in everlasting snows, or burnt by a tropical sun, it might still be as utterly sterile; but with such sterility I had long been familiar. Here the colourings are those of the fiery desert or volcanic island, while th

called "zemik" (blind ones), but this is thought no great defect. They average 5 pounds to 10 pounds for a good animal in Tibet; and the best fetch 40 pounds to 50 pounds in the plains of India, where they become acclimated and thrive well. Giantchi (Jhansi-jeung of Turner) is the best mart for them in this part of Tibet, where some breeds fetch very high prices. The Tib

troublesome, and bad sleepers; they used to try to effect an entrance into my tent, pushing their muzzles under the flaps at the bottom, and awakening me with a

ggots of two large flies, a yellow and black, affording abundant food to red-legged crows, ravens, and swallows. Butterflies are rare; the few are mostly Colias, Hipparchia, Polyommatus, and Melitaea; these I have seen feeding at 17,000 feet; when found higher, they have generally been carried up by currents. Of beetles, an Aphodeus, in yak-droppings, and an Elaphrus, a predaceous genus inhabiting swamps, are almost the only ones I saw. The wild quadrupeds are huge sheep, in flocks of fifty, the Ovis Ammon called "Gnow." I never shot one, not having

ttained by practice, in Tibet, north of Sikkim.] The observations taken on these excursions are sufficiently illustrated by those of Donkia pass: they served chiefly to perfect my map, measure the surrounding peaks, and determine

e to the internal temperature of the globe; then according to the law of increment of heat in descending (of 1 degree for fifty feet) we should find the temperature of 110 degrees at a depth of 4,100 feet, or at 11,900 feet above the level of the sea. Direct experiment with internal heat has not, however, been carried beyond 2000 feet below the surface, and as the ratio of increment diminishes with the depth, that above assigned to the temperature of 110 degrees is no doubt much too little. The Momay springs more probably owe their temperature to chemical decomposition of sulphurets of metals. I foun

ter, ninety feet deep, and beds of snow, and is deeply corroded; gigantic blocks are perched on pinnacles of ice on its surface, and the gravel cones* [For a description of this curious phenomenon, which has been illustrated by Agassiz, see "Forbes's Alps," p. 26 and 347.] are often twenty feet high. The crevassing so conspicuous on the Swiss glaciers is not so regular on this, and the surface appears more like a troubled ocean; due, no doubt, to the copious rain and snow-falls throughout the summer, and the corroding

y 400 feet. Between the moraine and the west flank of the valley is a large lake, with terraced banks, whose bottom (covered with fine felspathic silt) is several hundred feet above that o

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