T. H. D. La Touche—Relics of Ice Age in India. 195 
I indicated in speaking of the great ice-sheet, and start with those 
regions where glacial conditions still prevail, the highest ranges of 
the Himalaya, that is to say, and see what are the peculiar physical 
features that accompany a lowering of the temperature. The first of 
these is a former extension of the glaciers far beyond their present 
limits. As a glacier moves it carries on its surface or embedded in the 
ice huge accumulations of loose material fallen from the hill-sides 
rising above it, and at its snout, where the ice melts, deposits this 
material in an embankment-like heap, known as its terminal moraine, 
just as a gang of coolies builds up a railway embankment. If then 
the glacier retreats, this embankment will be left behind as a sign of 
the former extension of the ice. In many of the Himalayan valleys 
remains of these ancient moraines have been found as low down as 
7000 feet, whereas the present limit of the glaciers varies from 
11,000 to 18,000 feet. General MeMahon records the existence of an 
old moraine near Dalhousie, in the North-West Himalaya, at an 
elevation of about 4740 feet above the sea.’ 
But these ancient moraines are not the only indication that the 
glaciers were at one time of far greater size. In some cases smoothed 
and scratched surfaces of rock on the valley sides, far above the 
present level of the ice, bear witness to its former depth. The 
striking contrast between the U shape of a valley which has once 
been occupied by a glacier, and the V shape of the valley below, so 
characteristic of the inner Himalaya, even where old moraines are 
absent, affords further proof in the same direction. 
But, as I remarked before, we have no evidence that any of these 
glaciers ever descended as low as the plains of India, though an 
bubhtsiastic glaciologist, Mr. Theobald, once a member of the 
Geological Survey, thought that he had obtained such evidence in 
Kumaon, in the shape of old moraines, and on the plains of the 
Potwar, an elevated tract of country lying north of the Salt Range, 
between the Jhelum and the Indus.? We must look for the evidence 
which I now wish to place before you in another direction. 
One of the most striking features of the tracts that lie in the 
immediate neighbourhood of the snows is the absence of vegetation. 
Although those who have done no more than make a trip to one 
of the more accessible glaciers may be charmed by the sight of 
forests of pines or birches flourishing in close proximity to the ice, 
and with the grassy sward clothed with flowers that cover even the 
moraines, a climb of a few thousand feet will bring them to a region 
where not even a blade of grass is to be found, and the only 
vegetation met with consists of mosses, lichens, and a few of the most 
hardy flowering plants. One result of the absence of vegetation is 
that the agents of disintegration of the rocks have full play. The 
constant fimgarein one of temperature, for even at these altitudes the 
sun by day has great power, the alternate freezing and melting of 
water in the pores and interstices of the rocks, the violence of the 
wind, and the almost constant precipitation of moisture, all combine in 
1 Records, Geol. Surv. Ind., vol. xv, p. 49. 
* Tbid., vol. vii, p. 86; vol. X, pp. 140, 223; vol. xili, p. 221. See also A. B. 
Wynne, ibid., vol. xi, p. 150 ; vol. xiv, p. 15847 
