Illustration--LOFTY ANCIENT MORAINES IN THE LACHOONG VALLEY, LOOKING SOUTH-EAST. On the south side of the Tunkrachoo river the moraines are also more or less terraced, as is the, floor of the Lachoong valley, and its east slopes, 1000 feet up.* [I have since been greatly struck with the similarity between the features of this valley, and those of Chamouni (though the latter is on a smaller scale) above the Lavanchi moraine. The spectator standing in the expanded part below the village of Argentiere, and looking upwards, sees the valley closed above by the ancient moraine of the Argentiere glacier, and below by that of Lavanchi; and an all sides the slopes are cut into terraces, strewed with boulders. I found traces of stratified pebbles and sand on the north flank of the Lavanchi moraine however, which I failed to discover in those of Lachoong. The average slope of these pine-clad Sikkim valleys much approximates to that of Chamouni, and never approaches the precipitous character of the Bernese Alps' valleys, Kandersteg, Lauterbrunnen, and Grindelwald.] The river is fourteen yards broad, and neither deep nor rapid: the village is on the east bank, and is large for Sikkim; it contains fully 100 good wooden houses, raised on posts, and clustered together without order. It was muddy and intolerably filthy, and intersected by some small streams, whose beds formed the roads, and, at the same time, the common sewers of the natives. There is some wretched cultivation in fields,* [Full of such English weeds as shepherd's purse, nettles, _Solanum nigrum,_ and dock; besides many Himalayan ones, as balsams, thistles, a beautiful geranium, mallow, _Haloragis_ and Cucurbitaceous plants.] of wheat, barley, peas, radishes, and turnips. Rice was once cultivated at this elevation (8000 feet), but the crop was uncertain; some very tropical grasses grow wild here, as _Eragrostis_ and _Panicum._ In gardens the hollyhock is seen: it is said to be introduced through Tibet from China; also _Pinus excelsa_ from Bhotan, peaches, walnuts, and weeping willows. A tall poplar was pointed out to me as a great wonder; it had two species of _Pyrus_ growing on its boughs, evidently from seed; one was a mountain ash, the other like _Pyrus Aria._