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XXXVI. Proceedings of Learned Societies. 
ASIATIC SOCIETY. 
On Monday evening, August 10, 1818, a Meeting of the Asiatic 
Society was held at Chouringhee, The most noble The Marquis of 
Hastings, President, in the chair. 
On this occasion, the journal of a survey to the heads of the 
rivers Ganges and Jumna, by Captain Hodgson 10th regiment 
native infantry was presented by the President. Captain 
Webb’s Survey, in 1808, having extended from the Doon valley 
to Cajane near Reital, Captain Hodgson commences his scien- 
tific and interesting labours from the latter place, which by a se- 
ries of observations he found to be in latitude 30 48 28 Nn. 
The village of Reital consists of 35 houses which are built of 
wood, and are two or three stories high. He left Reital on the 
2ist of May 1817. On the 3ist he descended to the bed of 
the river, and saw the Ganges issue from under a very low arch, 
at the foot of the grand snow bed. The river was bounded on 
the right and left by high rocks and snow, but in front over the 
debouchee the mass of snow was perpendicular, and from the bed 
of the stream to the summit the thickness was estimated at little 
less than 300 feet of solid frozen snow, probably the accumula- 
tion of ages, as it was in layers of several feet thick, each seem- 
ingly the remains of a fall of a separate year. From the brow of 
this curious wall of snow, and immediately above the outlet of 
the stream, large and hoary icicles depended. The Gaghoutri 
Brahmin, who accompanied Captain Hodgson, and who was an 
illiterate mountaineer, observed, that he thought these icicles 
must be Mahadeo’s hair, from whence, he understood, it is writ- 
ten in the Schaster, the Ganges flows. Captain Hodgson thinks 
that the appellation of the Cow’s mouth is aptly giver to this ex- 
traordinary debouchee. The height of the arch of snow is only 
sufficient to let the stream flow under it.—Blocks of snow were 
falling on all sides, and there was little time to do more than to 
measure the size of the stream; the main breadth was 27 feet, 
the greatest depth about 18 inches, and the shallowest part nine 
or ten inches. Captain Hodgson believes this to be the first ap- 
pearance in day-light of the celebrated Ganges |! Zealous in the 
prosecution of his inquiries, he attempted to proceed forward, 
but was obliged to return, having frequently sunk in the snow, 
one time up to his neck, and there being evident marks of hol- 
lows beneath. 
The height of the halting place, near which the Ganges issues 
from under the great snow bed, is calculated to be 12,914 feet 
above the sea ; and the height of a peak of the Himalaya, called 
St. 
