May, 1849. TEMPLE AND GEOLOGY OF CHOONGTAM. 27 



The temple at Choongtam is a poor wooden building, 

 but contains some interesting drawings of Lhassa, with 

 its extensive Lamaseries and temples ; they convey the 

 idea of a town, gleaming, like Moscow, with gilded and 

 copper roofs ; but on a nearer aspect it is found to consist 

 of a mass of stone houses, and large religious edifices many 

 stories high, the walls of which are regularly pierced with 

 small square ornamented windows.* 



There is nothing remarkable in the geology of Choong- 

 tam : the base of the hill consists of the clay and mica 

 slates overlain by gneiss, generally dipping to the eastward ; 

 in the latter are granite veins, containing fine tourmalines. 

 Actinolites are found in some highly metamorphic gneisses, 

 brought by landslips from the neighbouring heights. The 

 weather in May was cloudy and showery, but the rain 

 which fell was far less in amount than that at Dorjiling : 

 during the day the sun's power was great ; but though it 

 rose between five and six a.m., it never appeared above the 

 lofty peaked mountains that girdle the valley till eight a.m. 



* MM. Hue and Gabet's account of Lhassa is, I do not doubt, excellent as to 

 particulars ; but the trees which they describe as magnificent, and girdling the 

 city, have uniformly been represented to me as poor stunted willows, apricots, 

 poplars, and walnuts, confined to the gardens of the rich. No doubt the impres- 

 sion left by these objects on the minds of travellers from tree-less Tartary, and of 

 Sikkimites reared amidst stupendous forests, must be widely different. The 

 information concerning Lhassa collected by Timkowski, " Travels of the Russian 

 Mission to China" (in 1821) is greatly exaggerated, though containing much that 

 is true and curious. The dyke to protect the city from inundations I never heard 

 of; but there is a current story in Sikkim that Lhassa is built in a lake-bed, which 

 was dried up by a miracle of the Lamas, and that in heavy rain the earth trembles, 

 and the waters bubble through the soil : a Dorjiling rain-fall, 1 have been assured, 

 would wash away the whole city. Ermann (Travels in Siberia, i., p. 186), men- 

 tions a town (Klinchi, near Perm), thus built over subterraneous springs, and in 

 constant danger of being washed away. MM. Hue and Gabet allude to the 

 same tradition under another form. They say that the natives of the banks 

 of the Koko-nor affirm that the waters of that lake once occupied a subterranean 

 position beneath Lhassa, and that the waters sapped the foundations of the temples 

 as soon as they were built, till withdrawn by supernattiral agency. 



