649
enormous width—confluent into a sea of ice —and which, until thedescription that had been given by Captain. Godwin-Austen, had beenunrivalled by any glacial phenomena with which they were acquainted,except the glacial formations in the Arctic regions, such as the Hum-boldt glacier in Smith’s Sound, described by Dr. Kane.
With regard to the glaciers upon the north, the Indus ran through along depressed valley westward, receiving from the north three greatbranches; the first branch, called Shayook, from the Kara-Korum, nextthe Nubra river, and also the Shiggur, which was the especial object ofCaptain Godwin-Austen’s communication. Now, the Shiggur valleywas the third of importance of all the affluents of the Indus , and wasbounded by mountains of a great elevation. Some of them which hadbeen measured by Major Montgomery attained a very great elevation ;one a height of 28,000 feet above the level of the sea. This naturallyentailed a prodigious amount of condensation of the moisture of theatmosphere, and led to a very heavy fall of snow, the result of whichwas seen in these glacial phenomena. Twenty-seven years ago he hadbeen up to Arindoh, the extreme termination of the western or Bashabranch, and from that point by a detour he got across upon the othervalley by the Scora-la Pass to the glacier of the Braldoh river, wherehe saw all the phenomena which had been described by CaptainGodwin-Austen.
Having premised this much with regard to special details, there wereone or two points which he was desirous to bring before them. Onewas, What were the peculiar characteristics of the Ilimalayalis, as wellas of all tropical mountains, as compared with our European mountain-chains ? There was one characteristic of the Himalaj'an chain so re-markable that he should take the liberty of explaining it at some length,lie presumed that most of his audience had visited either the northernor southern side of the Alps ; and those who had been in the plains ofItaly , along the Valley of the Po, were well acquainted with thenumerous lakes which jutted out from the Alps into the plain of Italy .Commencing on the west, they had got the Lago d’Orta, the LagoMaggiore, the Lago Lugano, the Lago di Como , the Lago d’lseo, andthe Lago di Garda ; in fact, wherever a great valley projected itselffrom the chain of the Alps at right angles to the strike of the chain,there they had, with one or two exceptions, uniformly a great lake.Ilegarding these lakes in a general way, without reference to detailedphenomena, they found one thing which was constant about them—
‘ they were invariably narrow, and some forty or fifty miles long, asnotably in the case of Maggiore, Como, and Garda.’ The next re-markable thing about them was that they invariably radiated out atright angles to the strike of the great chain of the Alps. The Alps made a curve from the Pennine round to the Ilhcetian Alps . Theywould also observe that these lakes were severally fed by a consider-able river which proceeded from a high ridge of the chain, and whichwas throwm forivard into the plains of the Valley of the Po.
If they would consider the Himalayahs, or any tropical range ofmountains whatever, in a similar way, they would find that those lakephenomena were invariably wanting. Great rivers like the Indus , theChenab, the Sutlej, and the Ganges, which passed through the HimalayanMountains and debouched into the plains of India , had got valleys of