120 LACHOONG VALLEY. Chap. XXII. 



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,* is the termination of a magnificent amphitheatre 

 of stupendous snow-clad precipices, continuously upwards 

 of 20,000 feet high, that forms the east flank of the upper 

 Lachoong. From Donkia top again, the mountains sweep 

 round to the westward, rising into fingered peaks of extra- 

 ordinary magnificence ; and thence — still running west — 

 dip to 18,500 feet, forming the Donkia pass, and rise again 

 as the great mural mass of Kinchinjhow. This girdle of 

 mountains encloses the head waters of the Lachoong, which 

 rises in countless streams from its perpetual snows, glaciers, 

 and small lakes : its north drainage is to the Cholamoo 

 lakes in Tibet; in which is the source of the Lachen, which 

 flows round the north base of Kinchinjhow to Kongra Lama. 

 The bottom of the Lachoong valley at Momay is broad, 

 tolerably level, grassy, and covered Avith isolated mounds 

 and ridges that point down the valley, and are the remains 

 of glacial deposits. It dips suddenly below this, and some 

 gneiss rocks that rise in its centre are remarkably moutoti- 

 /teed or rounded, and have boulders perched on their sum- 

 mits. Though manifestly rounded and grooved by ancient 

 glaciers, I failed to find scratches on these weather-worn 

 rocks, f 



* Its elevation by my observations is about 21,870 feet. 



+ I have repeatedly, and equally in vain, sought for scratchings on many of the 



most conspicuously moutonneed gneiss rocks of Switzerland. The retention of 



•such markings depends on other circumstances than the mere hardness of the 



rock, or amount of aqueous action. What can be more astonishing than to see 



