GLACIERS OF THE ALPS. 285 



officers of the Survey to be thirty-five miles in length,* " measured along a 

 central line from its termination up to peak K^." The Biafo glacier, the 

 foot of which is about ten miles west of the Baltoro, is said to be over forty 

 miles long. 



It is impossible to go into a detailed description of the glacial system of 

 the Himalayas as developed at the heads of the Sutlej and the Ganges. 

 Reference may be made to some of the accessible works, more or less popular 

 in character, where these are described.! Through the whole length of the 

 range there is a constant repetition around the higher masses of great snow- 

 fields with extensive glaciers dependent from them. 



The height of the snow line on the two sides of the Himalayan Range is 

 given by H. von Schlagintvveit as follows.^ For the south side of the Hima- 

 layas from Bhutan to Kashmir, with a mean temperature of 0°.5 (C), 16,200 

 feet ; on the north slope, mean temperature — 2°. 8, 18,600 feet ; on the 

 Karakorum Range, in Tibet and Turkestan, between the parallels of 28° and 

 36°, with a mean temperature of — 3°. 9, 19,100 feet. 



The glaciers of the Alps are so well known, and have been so often de- 

 scribed in both popular and scientific works, that it will only be desirable 

 here to recall the more important facts connected with their occurrence. 



The smallness of the area covered by perpetual snow and ice in the 

 Alpine chain is the first fact which claims our notice. Switzerland itself has 

 an area of about 14,000 square miles, of which nearly one-eighteenth is thus 

 occupied. The principal glacier districts are, according to Desor, fourteen in 

 number, beginning on the west with that of Mont Pelvoux in Dauphiny, and 

 ending on the east with the snowy range which extends from the Krimmler 

 Tauern to the Heiligenbluter Tauern and culminates in the Gross Glockner. 

 To the east of this there are no snow-fields of any importance on the range. 



* 1. c, p. 370, and Journal of the Royal Geologujal Society, 1864, pp. clxill and 19-56. In the latter paper 

 Captain Godwin- Austen has given a somewhat detailed account of the glaciers of the "Mustakh Range," includ- 

 ing those of Biafo and Baltoro. 



t The Abode of Snow, by Andrew Wilson, London and Edinburgh, 1875, describes some of the glaciers in 

 Spiti, at the head of the Chandra, a branch of the Indus. 



Eeiscn in Indicn und Hochasien by Hermann von Schlagintweit, 4 vols. Svo, Jena, 1870-1880, Vol. II. 

 contains a chapter (pp. 256-267) on tlie snow and ice summits of the east-west portion of the Himalayas (Bhutan, 

 Sikkim, and Nepal). 



The views taken by Shepherd and Bourne of Calcutta embrace a wide range of the glacier regions of the Hima- 

 layas, and aie most admirable specimens of the photographic art. 



J 1. c. Band IV. p. 522. It will be .seen how the snow line rises with a diminution of the temperature, in- 

 stead of falling, the necessary result of the diminished precipitation in going towards the interior of the mountain 

 system. 



