522 Memoranda on the Geology of Sikkim. 



be found a fold of slate overlying that, and lower down the 

 mountains, sandstone is to be met with, super-imposed on 

 the slate. 



The ridge by which Darjeeling is approached from the plains, 

 and along which the new road runs is gneiss, as above stated, 

 from about half-way between Punkabaree Dak Bungalow 

 and the Kursiong Hotel pretty uniformly, and to near Ging 

 on one spur and to near Tukvar on another spur. The upper 

 portion of Gbongla is gneiss, and on these parts of the moun- 

 tains, oak trees abound. The higher portion of Singreeong is 

 gneiss, and the ridge from Hee on the Kullait stretching south- 

 ward, and from which the Reshee and Ruttoo take their ori- 

 gin, is of the same primitive rock, and they are also covered 

 with oak forest. The upper portion of Chinchul likewise ex- 

 hibits the same natural characters, geological and botanical. 



The cultivated lands may be said to mark the limit of the 

 aluminous deposit ; for it is only on the black soils that the 

 people of the country think it worth while to sow grain, as 

 they say, the red soil gives but a very scanty out-turn in com- 

 parison with what the dark coloured lands afford. On the 

 upper lands, the alumina is only met with in a disintegrated 

 state ; towards the banks of the rivers it occurs in the stratifi- 

 ed form of slate. 



Captain Herbert in his account of the Geology of the 

 Himalayas, so far as examined by him, states, it is difficult 

 to draw any distinctions between the mica slate and clay slate 

 formations in those regions, and the observation seems to 

 hold good for the section of those mountains now spoken of. 



From Tukvar to the Rungeet, and up the Rungeet valley 

 by the road to old Sikkim over Chakoong, Sungreeong and 

 Rinchinpoore, and along the Kullait, we passed through land 

 in cultivation, or that bore traces of having been one time 

 sown or culturable, except where too steep and rocky to 

 admit of being so used. But from an elevation, a little higher 

 than Hee on the Kullait, and south of it by the sources of the 



