beautiful laburnum-like _Piptanthus Nepalensis,_ with golden
blossoms, was conspicuous. Enormous blocks of white and red
stratified quartz, and slate, some 20 and even 40 yards long, rest on
the narrow ridge at 7000 feet elevation. The last ascent is up a
steep rounded cone with a broad flat top, covered with dwarf bamboo,
a few oaks, laurels, magnolias, and white-flowered rhododendron trees
(_R. argenteum_), which obstructed the view. I hung the barometers
near one of the many chaits on the summit, where there is also a rude
temple, in which worship is performed once a year. The elevation is
8,671 feet by my observations.* [8,663 by Col. Waugh's
trigonometrical observations.] The geological formation of Tendong in
some measure accounts for its peculiar form. On the conical summit
are hard quartzoze porphyries, which have apparently forced up the
gneiss and slates, which dip in all directions from the top, and are
full of injected veins of quartz. Below 7000 feet, mica-schist
prevails, always inclined at a very high angle; and I found jasper
near Namtchi, with other indications of Plutonic action.

The descent on the north side was steep, through a rank vegetation,
very different from that of the south face. The oaks are very grand,
and I measured one (whose trunk was decayed, and split into three,
however), which I found to be 49 feet in girth at 5 feet from the
ground. Near Temi (alt. 4,770 feet) I gathered the fruit of
_Kadsura,_ a climbing plant allied to Magnolia, bearing round heads
of large fleshy red drupes, which are pleasantly acid and much eaten;
the seeds are very aromatic.

From Temi the road descends to the Teesta, the course of which it
afterwards follows. The valley was fearfully hot, and infested with
mosquitos and peepsas. Many fine plants grew in it:* [Especially upon