648 GLACIER-EROSION THEORY 



XXVIII. ON THE GLACIEE-EEOSION THEORY OF 



LAKE-BASINS. 



I. — Abstract of an Extempore Speech delivered by Dr. Falconer 

 at the Royal Geographical Society, on January 27, 18G4, and 



PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY. 



Dr. Falconer, after describing the progress of the Trigonometrical 

 Survey in India, next drew attention to the glacier system of the 

 Himalayahs. All the best observers — Dr. Thomson, Jacquemont, and 

 others — had been of opinion that there was but one great system of 

 mountains. There was no such thing as any break of mountain range, 

 or any distinct mountain chains. There were great rivers which cut 

 them across, rivers like the Indus, the Sutlej, and some feeders of the 

 Ganges ; but, regarded in one grand aspect, they constituted a series or 

 mass of mountains with ravines and valleys intervening. Viewed, then, 

 in this light, there were two great ranges which culminated to especially 

 great altitudes, and which bounded the Indus river to the south and 

 the north ; and this being oue of the points where the Himalayan chain 

 attained its greatest elevation, there the glacial phenomena were developed 

 in most grandeur and upon the loftiest scale. Captain Godwin- Austen 

 had referred to that part of the range which bounded the Valley of the 

 Indus upon the north, the Kara-Korum or Mooztagh or the ' Icy range 

 of mountains,' and the other great series of them were the mountains 

 which bounded the Indus upon the south. Although the glaciers upon 

 the Shiggur Valley and in the Valley of Braldoh, which he himself had 

 visited in 1838, l were of such surpassing grandeur and importance as 

 had been mentioned by Sir Roderick Murchison, it was but fair to 

 other observers to say that upon the northern side there were glaciers 

 which, so far as description went, were equally grand, if not grander. 

 Those to which he should especially refer were the glaciers at the head 

 of the Zanscar river, the sublime features of which had been so well 

 described by Dr. Thomson. Mr. J. Arrowsmith, from his labours on 

 the maps of Hugel, Thomson, and other explorers, was well acquainted 

 with the mountain-ridge to which he referred, and the glaciers which 

 arose from it. There was the river called the Chenab, and a mountain 

 range which stretched across between the Indus and the Chenab. The 

 pass of the dividing ridge at this point was 18,000 feet above the level 

 of the sea ; and upon either side, but more especially upon the north, 

 at the heads of the Zanscar river, were some of the grandest glacier 

 phenomena which were to be seen in any part of the world. There 

 were glaciers extending from a very great distance, which attained 



1 See vol. i. p. 570.— [Ed]. 



