Oct. 1849. SUMMIT OF BHOMTSO. 165 



were nearly vertical strata of quartz, hornstone, and conglo- 

 merate, striking north-west, and dipping south-west 80°. 

 The broad top of the hill was also of quartz, but covered 

 with angular pebbles of the rocks transported from 

 Kinchinjhow. Some clay-stone fragments were stained 

 red with oxide of iron, and covered with Parmelia 

 miniata ; * this, with Borrera, another lichen, which forms 

 stringy masses blown along by the wind, were the only 

 plants, and they are among the most alpine in the world. 



Bhomtso is 18,590 feet above the sea by barometer, and 

 18,305 by boiling-point: it presented an infinitely more 

 extensive prospect than I had ventured to anticipate, com- 

 manding all the most important Sikkim, North Ehotan, and 

 Tibetan mountains, including Kinchinjunga thirty-seven 

 miles to the south-west, and Chumulari thirty-nine miles 

 south-east. Due south, across the sandy valley of the 

 Lachen, Kinchinjhow reared its long wall of glaciers and 

 rugged precipices, 22,000 feet high, and under its cliffs lay 

 the lake to which we had walked in the morning : beyond 

 Kongra Lama were the Thlonok mountains, where I had 

 spent the month of June, with Kinchinjunga in the distance. 

 Westward Chomiomo rose abruptly from the rounded hills 

 we were on, to 22,000 feet elevation, ten miles distant. To 

 the east of Kinchinjhow were the Cholamoo lakes, with the 

 rugged mass of Donkia stretching in cliffs of ice and snow 

 continuously southwards to forked Donkia, which overhung 

 Momay Samdong. 



A long sloping spur sweeps from the north of Donkia first 

 north, and then west to Bhomtso, rising to a height of more 



* This minute lichen, mentioned at p. 130, is the most Arctic, Antarctic, and 

 Alpine in the world ; often occurring so abundantly as to colour the rocks of an 

 orange red. This was the case at Bhomtso, and is so also in Cockburn Island in 

 the Antarctic ocean, which it covers so profusely that the rocks look as if brightly 

 painted. See " Ross's Voyage,"' vol. ii. p. 330. 



