[109] At sunrise the temperature was 11·5°; that of grass, cleared on the previous day from snow, and exposed to the sky, 6·5°; that on wool, 2·2°; and that on the surface of the snow, 0·7°. Before sunrise the atmosphere was still, and all but cloudless. To the south-east were visible the plains of India, at least 140 miles distant; where, as usual, horizontal layers of leaden purple vapour obscured the horizon: behind these the sun rose majestically, instantly dispersing them, while a thin haze spread over all the intervening mountains, from its slanting beams reaching me through otherwise imperceptible vapours: these, as the sun mounted higher, again became invisible, though still giving that transparency to the atmosphere and brilliant definition of the distances, so characteristic of a damp, yet clear day. Mon Lepcha commands a most extensive view of Sikkim, southward to Dorjiling. At my feet lay the great and profound valley of the Ratong, a dark gulf of vegetation. Looking northward, the eye followed that river to the summit of Kinchinjunga (distant eighteen miles), which fronts the beholder as Mont Blanc does when seen from the mountains on the opposite side of the valley of Chamouni. To the east are the immense precipices and glaciers of Pundim, and on the west those of Kubra, forming great supporters to the stupendous mountain between them. Mon Lepcha itself is a spur running south-east from the Kubra shoulder: it is very open, and covered with rounded hills for several miles further north, terminating in a conspicuous conical black hummock[110] called Gubroo, of 15,000 feet elevation, which presents a black cliff to the south. [110] This I have beau told is the true Kubra; and the great snowy mountain behind it, which I here, in conformity with the Dorjiling nomenclature, call Kubra, has no name, being considered a part of Kinchin. Kinchinjunga rises in three heads, of nearly equal height,[111] which form a line running north-west. It exposes many white or grey rocks, bare of snow, and disposed in strata[112] sloping to the west; the colour of all which above 20,000 feet, and the rounded knobbed form of the summit, suggest a granitic formation. Lofty snowed ridges project from Kubra into the Ratong valley, presenting black precipices of stratified rocks to the southward. Pundim has a very grand appearance; being eight miles distant, and nearly 9000 feet above Mon Lepcha, it subtends an angle of 12°; while Kinchin top, though 15,000 feet higher than Mon Lepcha, being eighteen miles distant, rises only 9° 30 minutes above the true horizon: these angular heights are too small to give much grandeur and apparent elevation to mountains, however lofty; nor would they do so in this case, were it not that the Ratong valley which intervenes, is seen to be several thousand feet lower, and many degrees below the real horizon. [111] The eastern and western tops, are respectively 27,826 and 28,177 feet above the level of the sea.