Appendix C. ON THE SOILS OF SIKKIM. 383 



C* 



ON THE SOILS OF SIKKIM. 



Theke is little variety in the soil throughout Sikkim, and, as 

 far as vegetation is concerned, it may be divided into vegetable 

 mould and stiff clay — each, as they usually occur, remarkably 

 characteristic in composition of such soils. Bog-earth is very rare, 

 nor did I find peat at any elevation. 



The clay is uniformly of great tenacity, and is, I believe, wholly 

 due to the effect of the atmosphere on crumbling gneiss and other 

 rocks. It makes excellent bricks, is tenacious, seldom friable, and 

 sometimes accumulated in beds fourteen feet thick, although more 

 generally only about two feet. In certain localities, beds or narrow 

 seams of pure felspathic clay and layers of vegetable matter occur in 

 it, probably wholly due to local causes. An analysis of that near 

 Dorjiling gives about 30 per cent, of alumina, the rest being silica, 

 and a fraction of oxide of iron. Lime is wholly unknown as a 

 constituent of the soil, and only occasionally seen as a stalactitic 

 deposit from a few springs. 



A layer of vegetable earth almost invariably covers the clay to the 

 depth of from three to twelve or fourteen inches. It is a very rich 

 black mould, held in its position on the slopes of the hills by the 

 dense vegetation, and accumulated on the banks of small streams to a 

 depth at times of three and four feet. The following is an analysis 

 of an average specimen of the surface-soil of Dorjiling, made for me 

 by my friend C. J. Muller, Esq., of that place: — 



a. — DRY EARTH. 



Anhydrous 83'84 



Water 16'16 



100-00 



* The tables referred to, at v. i. p. 31, as under Appendix C, will be found 

 under Appendix A. 



