236 ON GLACIERS IN GENERAL. " 



attention to the glaciers of the central Himalaya (Kumaon) at 

 the source of the rivers Pindur and Kuphinee, in lat. 30 20'? 

 at the level of 11,300 and 12,000 feet respectively, the height 

 of the snow-line being there about 15,000 feet.* The pheno- 

 mena and mode of progression of these glaciers, as noted by 

 Captain R. Strachey, appear to be identical with those which 

 we shall presently describe as characteristic of those of Europe. 

 Farther in the interior of the same chain, Dr. Thomas Thomson 

 has lately described f numerous glaciers filling valleys of the 

 central Himalaya (particularly that on the north side of the 

 Bardar or Umasi pass, lat. 33, 20', long. 76J E.), .which pro- 

 bably exceeds in size any other yet described. Dr. Joseph 

 Hooker, in his interesting Himalayan Journals, has described 

 in detail the glaciers of the eastern portion of the same range 

 in the territories of Sikkim and Nepaul, where the gigantic 

 mountain Kinchinjunga rears its head to 28,178 feet above the 

 sea, whence the ice descends (he states) in one unbroken mass 

 of 14,000 feet of vertical height to the source 'of the Thlonok 

 river. Both Dr. Thomson and Dr. Hooker concur in ascribing 

 to the Himalayan glaciers a formerly much greater extension 

 towards the plains of India, which has left geological evidence 

 of, their former sojourn in the lower valleys, in the masses of 

 transported rock and rubbish there accumulated. Thus, instead 

 of glaciers being rare or unexampled phenomena in the east, 

 as was at one time supposed, we find them developed on a 

 scale commensurate with that of the stupendous mountains with 

 which they are connected, and that from one end to the other 

 of the Himalayan range. 



Passing over the less important glaciers of the Caucasus and 

 Altai, .we come to the glaciers of Europe, which are principally 

 confined to two great mountainous districts, the Alps and the 

 high lands of Norway. 



>.. Referring for minute topographical details to the works 

 which have been published more particularly in connection with 



* Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. xvi. part 2. 



f Western Himalaya and Tibet, etc. by Thomas Thomson, M.D., London, 1852. 



