400 Professor J. W. Gregory — 



had not taken an aneroid with me and could only estimate the height 

 above sea-level from these two records. Mr. B. G. Gwyther, the 

 Executive Engineer at Darjeeling, by careful aneroid observations, 

 checked by simultaneous readings at Darjeeling, has determined the 

 level of the bridge across the Eatho River on the Rinchenpong 

 track as 3,300 feet, and of the ninth mile post as 3,462 feet. 

 According to these determinations the roche moutonnee would be at 

 about 3,550 or perhaps 3,600 feet above sea-level. The glaciated 

 zone on the hill-side below Chakung probably extends as low as 

 about 3,500 feet above sea-level. 1 



The glacier which made these stria? may have come from one of two 

 sources: it may have flowed down the Ratho Valley from the high 

 ground a few miles to the west ; or it may have come from the 

 snow-clad mountains of the Kinchinjunga group, of which the nearest 

 bearing perpetual snow is Parsing, altitude 19,130 feet, 25 miles 

 north of Chakung up the Great Rangit Valley. Glaciers from the 

 southern side of the Kinchinjunga group appear to be the most 

 probable source of the ice which reached Chakung; the glacier would 

 have a straight course down the Rangit Valley until it flowed against 

 the Chakung spur and made these north to south trending grooves 

 and scratches. 



That the ice was a local glacier from the hills around the head of 

 the Ratho Valley suggested itself as a possibility, for the mountains 

 there rise to such heights as Helu Peak 9,370 feet, a summit further 

 west of 10,580 feet, and still further west to Singale La, 12,110feet. 

 P. N. Bose of the Indian Geological Survey, however, passed close 

 by the summit of Helu Peak (Bose, 1891, p. 65) and Singale La 

 (ibid., p. 47), and though he was on the watch for traces of glacial 

 action he records none at these localities. 



Though as previously remarked, old moraines are abundant in the 

 valleys of Northern Sikkim, the lowest hitherto recorded are those at 

 8,790 feet in the Lachen Valley, about 12 miles from the Zemu 

 Glacier, one of the greatest glaciers of the Kinchinjunga massif. 

 The Lachen moraines are about 45 miles in a direct line from 

 Chakung ; so that the striated surface there is far to the south and 

 on a much lower level than the lowest glacial evidence previously 

 described in Sikkim. 



4. Other Indication's of Glacial Action near Charting. 



There are further indications and suggestions of glaciation in the 

 neighbourhood of Chakung. Thus the spur of Langyong (which 

 rises from the Great Rangit River to Rufula, a peak north-west of 

 the conspicuous summit of Tendong), when seen from Rinchenpong 

 appears to have a rounded ice-worn northern face at a height of 



1 Mr. Gwyther's results give the height of the Chakung bungalow as 

 4,825 feet; the trigonometrical station at Chakung is 5,189 feet. Major Tandy, 

 of the Trigonometrical Survey Office for India, kindly tells me that rays were 

 observed from that station in all directions ; it was therefore not at the 

 bungalow but along the ridge at a somewhat higher level, which accounts for 

 the difference between Mr. Gwyther's. determination and that usually assigned 

 to the bungalow. 



