Jan. 1849. TEMPLE AT PEMIONGCIir. 327 



were strewed some enormous detached blocks of white 

 and pink stratified quartz : the rocks in situ were all 

 chlorite schist. 



Looking across the valley to the flank of Mainom, the 

 disposition of the ridges and ravines on its sides was very 

 evident ; many of the latter, throughout their westerly 

 course, from their commencement at 10,000 feet, to their 

 debouchure in the Great Rungeet at 2000, had a bluff, 

 cliffy, northern flank, and a sloping southern one. The 

 dip of the surfaces is, therefore, north-west, the exposure 

 consequently of the villages which occupy terraces on the 

 south flanks of the lateral valleys. The Tassiding spur 

 presented exactly the same arrangement of its ravines, and 

 the dip of the rocks being north-west, it follows that 

 the planes of the sloping surfaces coincide in direction 

 (though not in amount of inclination) with that of the 

 dip of the subjacent strata, which is anything but a 

 usual phenomenon in Sikkim. 



The ascent to Pemiongchi continued very steep, 

 through woods of oaks, chesnuts, and magnolias, but no 

 tree-fern, palms, Pothos, or plantain, which abound at this 

 elevation on the moister outer ranges of Sikkim. The 

 temple (elev. 7,083 feet) is large, eighty feet long, and in 

 excellent order, built upon the lofty terminal point of the 

 great east and west spur that divides the Kulhait from the 

 Ratong and Rungbee rivers ; and the great Changa- 

 chelling temple and monastery stand on another eminence 

 of the same ridge, two miles further west. 



The view of the snowy range from this temple is one of 

 the finest in Sikkim ; the eye surveying at one glance the 

 vegetation of the Tropics and the Poles. Deep in the 

 valleys the river-beds are but 3000 feet above the sea, 

 and are choked with fig-trees, plantains, and palms ; to 



