SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XVII. No. 433 



SCIENCE; 



A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER OF ALL THE ARTS AND SCIENCES 



PUBLISHED BY 



N. D. C.HODGES. 



47 Lafayette Place, New York. 



Subscriptions.— United States and Canada ®3.50 a year. 



Great Britain and Europe 4.60 a year. 



Comnmnications will be welcomed trom any quarter. Abstracts of scientiflc 

 papers are solicited, and twenty copies of the issue containing such will be 

 mailed the author on request in advance. Rejected manuscripts will be 

 returned to the authors only when the requisite amount of postage accom- 

 panies the manuscript. Whatever is intended for insertion must be authenti- 

 cated by the name and address of the writer; not necessarily for publication, 

 but as a guaranty of good faith. We do not hold ourselves responsible for 

 any view or opinions expressed in the communications of our correspondents. 



Attention is called to the "Wants" oolumu. All are invited to use it in 

 soliciting information or seeking new positions. The name and address of 

 applicants should be given in full, so that answers will go direct to them. The 

 *' Exchange " column is likewise open. 



OUR PRESENT KNOWLEDGE OF THE HIMALAYAS.' 



This was the subject of an able paper read at Monday's meeting 

 of the Royal Geographical Society, by Col. H. C. B. Tanner (In- 

 dian Staff Corps), who for many years has been one of the officers 

 of the Indian Survey, most of his time having been spent in vari- 

 ous parts of the Himalayas from north-west to south-east. The 

 paper was illustrated by a large number of admirable drawings by 

 the author, which afforded an excellent idea of the physical and 

 picturesque aspects of this great mountain system. 



With regard to avalanches. Col. Tanner stated that they play a 

 great part in the conformation of the topography, — a greater 

 part, indeed, than is generally supposed, — and this factor has 

 not received the attention it deserves at the hands of geologists. 



"I became acquainted," he said, "with four distinct kinds of 

 avalanche, which, perhaps, are called by distinctive names by 

 mountaineers, though I have been unable to ascertain them. The 

 first, and the most common, is the precipitation of a mass of new 

 snow from slopes which, from their steepness, are unable to retain 

 more than a limited quantity of snow on them. They occur gen- 

 erally in winter and in early spring, and are the cause of the re- 

 sults just described. The second kind of avalanche is a descent 

 of old snow, which is loosened by the heat of the sun. They may 

 be heard throughout the summer and autumn, and are dangerous 

 from the unexpected and irregular manner in which they slide 

 off. The sportsman and traveller should guard against them by 

 intelligently placing his camp in some sheltered spot out of their 

 reach. This class is not usually of any great extent or weight, but 

 such avalanches are of constant occurrence. The third kind can 

 only be seen when the rnountains are of peculiar formation or 

 structure, and are really ice and not snow avalanches. They are 

 of very constant occurrence in some localities, more particularly 

 where small glaciers are situated high up on the crest of moun- 

 tains, and are gradually pushed over the edge. In Lahaul, in the 

 company of a friend, we watched the face of the well-known 

 Gondla cliffs from the right bank of the Chandra River, and saw 

 a number of these ice-falls, which came down every few minutes, 

 filling the air with the noise of the loosened rocks and ice-blocks. 

 The fourth kind of avalanche is one that I have only once seen, 

 and ha ve never known described. It is very curious, being the move- 

 ments of billions of snowballs, which, in a stream a mile or half a 

 mile long, I saw slowly wind down the upper part of an elevated 

 valley in the Gilgit-Dareyl Mountains. I was after Ibex at the time 

 of the occurrence, and was watching a herd of these animals, 

 when I became aware of a low but distinct and unusual sound, 

 J From Nature of April 30. 



produced by a great snake-like mass of snow winding down one 

 of the valleys in my front. It occasionally stopped for a moment, 

 and then proceeded again, and finally came to a rest below me. 

 I found this curious movement of snow was produced by countless 

 numbers of snowballs, about the size of one's head, rolling over 

 and over each other. The torrent-bed was full of them, — an 

 accumulation formed by numerous similar freaks of nature. I 

 am quite unable to account for such an avalanche as the one now 

 described. How does it originate, or by what process is the snow 

 rolled up into these innumerable balls ? " 



Col. Tanner made some interesting remarks on the subject of 

 the line of perpetual snow. "Various authorities," he stated, 

 " lay down such a line with great assurance; but for myself , I 

 find that circumstances of position, of climate, and of latitude, 

 play so great a part in the position of this line that I am unable 

 to define it even approximately. No soooer in -one locality, or 

 during one particular season, have I settled, to my own satisfac- 

 tion, the line of perpetual snow, than I presently have been obliged 

 completely to modify my views on the subject. On p. 124 of the 

 'English Cyclopaedia,' vol. v., I read that snow lies 4.000 feet 

 higher on the northern than on the southern side of the Hima- 

 layas. On p. 281, vol. X., of the same work, it is stated that the 

 snow-line on the northern slope is at 19,000 feet, which I should 

 have been incluied to say is 1,500 or 2,000 feet too high. In Gil- 

 git, during the end of summer, I found masses and fields of snow 

 at 17,200 feet ; and they extended down the northern slope cer- 

 tainly 2,000 feet, or even more, below that altitude. In Kulu, 

 which has many degrees of latitude less than that of Gilgit, ava- 

 lanche snow lies in valleys above 8,000 feet throughout the year 

 after a good winter snowfall ; but during the past spring, follow- 

 ing a very mild winter, I found no snow at all at 8,000 feet. 

 There had been no avalanches, and even in June, at 14,000 feet, 

 snow lay only in patches. I think, that, in determining the 

 snow-line with greater precision than has been done hitherto, 

 scientific men should ascertain those altitudes on which perpetual 

 snow lies on flat places in the position where it first falls, and 

 should neglect the occurrence of a snow-field where it may have 

 been protected from the sun's rays by its occurrence on the north 

 face of a mountain. From memory I can state that there are a 

 considerable number of typical localities which would help out 

 such an inquiry. There is a peak (without a name) about thirty 

 miles north of Gilgit, with rounded summit, which, though only 

 17,500 feet high, is covered with a cap of perpetual snow." 



Speaking of the Himalayan glaciers, Col. Tanper stated that the 

 most extensive and the most picturesque he has seen are in the 

 Sat valley, which drains the southern face of Rakaposhi Moun- 

 tain in Gilgit. Three great glaciers come down into this valley, 

 and dispute with the hardy mountaineers for the possession of the 

 scanty area of the soil. Here may be seen forests, fields, orchards, 

 and inhabited houses all scattered about near the ice heaps. The 

 only passable route to the upper villages in this valley crosses the 

 nose of the greatest of the three glaciers, and threads its way over 

 its frozen surface. This glacier is cut up into fantastic needles of 

 pure green ice, some of which bear on their summits immense 

 bowlders. About half a mile from its lower end or nose. Col. 

 Tanner found an island bearing trees and bushes, and at one place 

 above this a very considerable tarn of deep blue-green water. 

 The glacier had two moraines parallel with each other, and both 

 bearing pine trees; and, from the highest point Col. Tanner 

 reached, he fancied he saw the ice emerging from the neve at its 

 source, far away up thfe slopes of Rakaposhi. In this glacier the 

 pinnacles, wedges, blocks, and needles of ice were of the most 

 extraordinary appearance, and the whole formed a weird and im- 

 pressive view which he can never forget. Though the largest 

 glacier Col. Tanner has ever approached, it is very small indeed 

 when compared with those described by Col. Godwin- Austen in a 

 locality not very far from the Sat valley. Insignificant though it 

 is, it was more than Col. Tanner could take in during his visit of 

 two days' duration. It struck him at the time of his inspection, 

 that the peculiar stratified appearance of the ice needles, which in 

 the case of the Sat glacier is very strongly marked, must have 

 been caused by the different falls of avalanche snow on the bed of 

 neve at the source of the glacier. 



