Atmospheric denudation and weathering have produced remarkable effects on the lower part of the Nonkreem valley, which is blocked up by a pine-crested hill, 200 feet high, entirely formed of round blocks of granite, heaped up so as to resemble an old moraine; but like the Nunklow boulders, these are not arranged as if by glacial action. The granite is micaceous, and usually very soft, decomposing into a coarse reddish sand, that colours the Boga-panee. To procure the iron-sand, which is disseminated through it, the natives conduct water over the beds of granite sand, and as the lighter particles are washed away, the remainder is removed to troughs, where the separation of the ore is completed. The smelting is very rudely carried on in charcoal fires, blown by enormous double-action bellows, worked by two persons, who stand on the machine, raising the flaps with their hands, and expanding them with their feet, as shown in the cut further on. There is neither furnace nor flux used in the reduction. The fire is kindled on one aide of an upright stone (like the head-stone of a grave), with a small arched hole close to the ground: near this hole the bellows are suspended; and a bamboo tube from each of its compartments, meets in a larger one, by which the draught is directed under the hole in the stone to the fire. The ore is run into lumps as large as two fists, with a rugged surface: these lumps are afterwards cleft nearly in two, to show their purity. Illustration--NONKREEM VILLAGE. The scenery about Nonkreem village is extremely picturesque, and we procured many good plants on the rocks, which were covered with the purple-flowered Orchid, _Coelogyne Wallichii._ The country is everywhere intersected with trenches for iron-washing, and some large marshes were dammed up for the same purpose: in these we found some beautiful balsams, _Hypericum_ and _Parnassia_; also a diminutive water-lily, the flower of which is no larger than a half-crown; it proves to be the _Nymphaea pygmaea_ of China and Siberia--a remarkable fact in the geographical distribution of plants. Illustration--BELLOWS. From Nonkreem we proceeded easterly to Pomrang, leaving Chillong hill on the north, and again crossing the Bega-panee, beyond which the sandstone appeared (strike north-east and dip north-west 60 degrees); the soil was poor in the extreme; not an inhabitant or tree was to be seen throughout the grassy landscape, and hardly a bush, save an occasional rhododendron, dwarf oak, or _Pieris,_ barely a few inches high.