Elephant Trunk Hill's Immortal Pill Box

Elephant Trunk Hill's Immortal Pill Box

The Immortal Pill Box is a formation seen in the Elephant Trunk Hill scenic area, where the shapes of the Longhu Mountain resemble numerous mountain peaks stacked layer upon layer like pills inside a box

Immortal Pill Box: At the top of this cliff lies a massive rectangular box, said to be filled with Zhang Tianshi’s Nine-Turn Immortal Pills, hence the name “Immortal Pill Box.” On the back of the elephant there is also a square box, said to contain the immortal herbs gathered by Zhang Tianshi for alchemy. After all these years, those herbs have likely turned into immortal pills as well. Both belong to the cliff wall landscape type of Danxia landform—that is, during the uplift of the original ground surface, water erosion cut downward along parallel-developed structures, forming northwesterly extending wall-like mountains. Later, intense collapse occurred along horizontal joint planes, and horizontal caves were formed by erosion along weaker rock layers midway up the mountainside, resulting in the upper part of the mountain resembling a giant square box with a flat top and steep cliffs on all four sides.

Location

Within Guixi City, Jiangxi Province