BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 841 
heavy thunder. Happily, no fragment can, by possibility, enter the 
valley, by reason of the low hills which flank the river, along whose 
bed we pursued our way. Violent rain soon ensued, and drenched us 
to the skin, Gradually, as we ascended, the valley widened, and at 
15,000 feet we emerged on a broad, flat table-land ; it might rather be 
called range after range of inosculating, flat, stony terraces, with a little 
herbage, amongst which the Lachen river meandered. Five hundred 
feet further, and we found ourselves on the top of a long flat ridge, 
connecting the N. W. extreme of Kinchin-jow with Chomoimo, and 
here stood the boundary-mark—a Cairn ! 
* Happily, the weather cleared, and enabled me to look about. North, 
the plateau dipped, by successive very low ridges, overhung with a 
canopy of the vapours that had deluged us. Easterly, was the blue sky 
and low ridges of the lofty table-land, which here backs the great range. 
To the west, the spurs of Chomoimo and much mist hid the horizon. 
South-east, Kinchin-jow, a flat-topped mass of snow—alt. 20,000 feet 
—rose abruptly, from low rocky cliffs and piles of débris. South-west 
was Chomoimo, equally snow ; while to the south, between these moun- 
tains, the plateau dipped into the funnel-mouthed head of the Lachen 
valley. So here, at last, after three months of obstacles, I stood at the 
back of the entire Himalaya range, and at its most northern trend in 
the central Himalaya; for this spot is far north of Kinchin-junga and 
Chumalari, or the Nipal Passes, which I visited last winter. It opens 
directly upon the Thibetan plateau, without crossing a snowy ridge to 
be succeeded by other and still other snowed spurs, as is the case at 
Kanglachen and Wallonchoong. 
* Here, too, I solved another grand problem—the elevation of the 
snow-line. Strange to say, there was not a particle of snow to be seen 
anywhere, en route, right or left, nor on the great mountains for 1,500 
feet above my position. The snow-line in Sikkim lies, on the Indian 
face of the Himalayan range, at below 15,000 feet ; on the Thibetan 
(northern) slope, at above 16,000! I felt very much delighted, and 
I hastily made a rude panoramic sketch of the scenery around me, on 
four folio sheets of paper, very rough, as you may suppose, for the keen 
wind blew a gale and we were quite wet. Above 15,000 feet, too, I 
am a ‘lost man’; my head rings with acute pain, and feels as if bound 
in a vice; my temples throb at every step, and I retch as with sea- 
sickness, 
