Western Asia and Eastern Europe, etc. 67 



point glaciers must have once descended, and which in some cases 

 must have rivalled in length the present ones of the Mustakh 



range Among the proofs that there has been a change of 



temperature of recent date are the following. Many passes which 

 were used even in the time of Eajah Ahmed Shah of Skardo, are 

 now closed. The road to Yarkand over the Baltoro glacier, which 

 before his time was known as the Mustakh, has by the increase of 

 the ice near the pass become quite impracticable. The men of the 

 Braldoh Valley were accordingly ordered to search for another 

 route, which they found in the present pass, at the head of the 

 Punmah glacier above Chiring. Again, the Jussespo La can now 

 be crossed only on foot ; whereas in former times ponies could be 

 taken over it. The pass at the head of the Hoh Loombah is now 

 never used, though there is a tradition that it was once a pass ; no 

 one, however, of the present generation that I could hear of had 

 ever crossed it. Certain large glaciers have advanced, such as that 

 at Arundu, of which the old men assured me that in their young 

 days the terminal cliff was 1| miles distant from the village. 

 Mr, Vigne says, ' it was a considerable distance,' it is now only 

 400 yards. A like increase has taken place at Punmah, where, 

 within the last six years, the road has been completely covered by 

 the ice and moraine, and where Mahomed, my guide, told me the 

 old camping ground was, now lies a quarter of a mile under the 

 ice; the overthrown trees and bushes plainly testified to the recent 

 advance which this mass has made ; this evidence was equally well 

 seen along the side of the Arundu glacier. Even so lately as twelve 

 years since, the people of Shigar were enabled to get two ci'ops off 

 their fields ; thus the first crop (barley) was followed as soon as 

 cut by a second (kunguni), which ripened by the end of autumn. 

 Since that time it will not come to maturity, so that after the barley 

 the fields now lie fallow, and the kunguni has now to be sown 

 earlier in the season" (Journ. Eoy. Geog. Soc. vol. xxxiv. p. 51.) 



In regard to the shrinkage of the glaciers, evidence is not of the 

 same kind, for the good reason that during recent years the stage 

 has been one of growth, but the same author's descriptions point to 

 the traces of former extension as being comparatively recent. Thus 

 he says of the Punmah glacier: "This glacier has in some past years 

 been upwards of a 100 feet thicker than it now is, as shown by its 

 lateral moraines, and the grooved and scratched rocks on either side" 

 {id. 30). Again, speaking of the glacier of Biafo, he says: "The 

 present thickness of the ice is a point not easily determined ; but, 

 judging from striee in the sides of ravines from which glaciers have 

 retired, from 300 to 400 feet, is not an exaggerated allowance for 

 what they once have been " {id. 50). Speaking of Basho he says : 

 " Glacier action of former times was here very apparent in the great 

 masses of angular rocks above the village. The enormous collection 

 of angular fragments in the terminal moraine of a large glacier, the 

 I'emains of which are to be sought higher up, and where now it is 

 only 4 or 5 miles long, with broad feeders from the mountains on 

 the west side" {id. 54). This will suffice from Godwin-Austen. 



