KINA BALU: SECOND EXPEDITION. 
191 
Mr. Burbidge, the altitude of which he gives as 9000 feet, cannot be the one visited by the 
two other travellers and myself, as shown by the following quotation :— 44 The next difficulty 
was to obtain water, since the men we had sent to search for it returned empty-handed ” 
( 4 The Gardens of the Sun,’ p. 101). The well-known cave has a stream flowing past it, and 
the same altitude, 9000 feet, is given by St. John. On his second expedition (page 275), 
Burbidge writes:—“We reached our former camping-ground, the cave, about 3.80.” That 
Burbidge must have reached about this altitude, 9000 feet, is evident from the following 
note:—“ Another occasional visitor is a Blackbird having a golden bill and a reddish-brown 
breast.” This bird is Merula seebohmi. The little bird he mentions possessing a note of 
“ ravishing sweetness ” is Cryptolopha schwaneri. As far as I can see there is no altitude 
that I can use for comparison in 4 The Gardens of the Sun,’ so I have only the estimates of 
three travellers at my disposal, which I give below:— 
St. John . 
Little . 
Whitehead 
Iviau. 
2700 ft. (map). 
2635 ft. 
2800 ft. 
Marshy open spot, 
2nd camp. 
7500 ft. 
7328 ft. 
7350 ft. 
Cave. 
Above 9,000 ft. (a guess). 
10,262 ft. 
10,300 ft. 
Little gives “Low’s Gully” as 11,312 feet; this point he evidently considered the 
summit, but the true top of the mountain is perhaps a mile and a half further to the west. 
The height, 13,698 feet, estimated by Belcher, is in all probability within a few feet of the 
true altitude. 
Speaking of the summit, Mr. St. John tells us that it “ consists of syenite granite, 
which is in many places so jointed as to give it the appearance of being stratified. It is 
gradually giving way before atmospheric influences, its northern base being covered with 
huge angular stones that have fallen.” 
Granite is an igneous rock which, we are told by geologists, “ is always a compact rock. 
The absence of cellular cavities which are produced in other volcanic rocks by gas 
expansion has led to the belief that granite has been formed at a considerable depth below 
the earth and has been crystallized slowly under great pressure, either from superimposed 
strata or deep seas.” Thus has the great granite mass of Kina Balu been formed and 
reared to its imposing height from the bottom of the sea, perhaps from a depth of many 
thousands of feet. The surrounding hills and spurs of this mountain are composed of 
sandstone and are not much higher than four thousand feet. 
The derivation of the great mountain’s name is still doubtful. 
Mr. Treacher, in an interesting article on “British Borneo” in the 4 Journal of the 
Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society ’ (1889, p. 66), gives a quotation from the 
4 Telselah Besar’ (i. e. the native history of Brunei):— 44 At that time also the Emperor ot 
China ordered two of his ministers to obtain possession of the precious stone of the dragon 
of the mountain of Kinabalu. Numbers of Chinese were devoured by the dragon, and 
still possession was not obtained of the stone. For this reason they gave the mountain 
the name of Kinabalu {Kina— Chinese, Jaft<=widow).” 
