Kinchinjunga rises in three heads, of nearly equal height,* [The eastern and western tops, are respectively 27,826 and 28,177 feet above the level of the sea.] which form a line running north-west. It exposes many white or grey rocks, bare of snow, and disposed in strata* [I am aware that the word strata is inappropriate here; the appearance of stratification or bedding, if it indicate any structure of the rock, being, I cannot doubt, due to that action which gives parallel cleavage planes to granite in many parts of the world, and to which the so-called lamination or foliation of slate and gneiss is supposed by many geologists to be due. It is not usual to find this structure so uniformly and conspicuously developed through large masses of granite, as it appeared to me to be on the sides of Kinchinjunga and on the top of Junnoo, as seen from the Choonjerma pass (Chapter XI, plate); but it is sometimes very conspicuous, and nowhere more than in the descent of the Grimsel towards Meyringen, where the granite on the east flank of that magnificent gorge seems cleft into parallel nearly vertical strata.] 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 degrees; while Kinchin top, though 15,000 feet higher than Mon Lepcha, being eighteen miles distant, rises only 9 degrees 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. Illustration--KINCHINJUNGA AND PUNDIM FROM MON LEPCHA.