OF LAKE-BASINS. 649 



enormous width — confluent into a sea of ice— and which, until the 

 description that had been given by Captain Godwin-Austen, had been 

 unrivalled by any glacial phenomena with which they were acquainted, 

 except the glacial formations in the Arctic regions, such as the Hum- 

 boldt glacier in Smith's Sound, described by Dr. Kane. 



With regard to the glaciers upon the north, the Indus ran through a 

 long depressed valley westward, receiving from the north three great 

 branches ; the first branch, called Shayook, from the Kara-Korum, next 

 the Nubra river, and also the Shiggur, which was the especial object of 

 Captain Godwin-Austen's communication. Now, the Shiggur valley 

 was the third of importance of all the affluents of the Indus, and was 

 bounded by mountains of a great elevation. Some of them which had 

 been measured by Major Montgomery attained a very great elevation ; 

 one a height of 28,000 feet above the level of the sea. This naturally 

 entailed a prodigious amount of condensation of the moisture of the 

 atmosphere, and led to a very heavy fall of snow, the result of which 

 was seen in these glacial phenomena. Twenty-seven years ago he had 

 been up to Arindoh, the extreme termination of the western or Basha 

 branch, and from that point by a detour he got across upon the other 

 valley by the Scora-la Pass to the glacier of the Braldoh river, where 

 he saw all the phenomena which had been described by Captain 

 Godwin-Austen. 



Having premised this much with regard to special details, there were 

 one or two points which he was desirous to bring before them. One 

 was, What were the peculiar characteristics of the Himalayahs, as well 

 as of all tropical mountains, as compared with our European mountain- 

 chains ? There was one characteristic of the Himalayan chain so re- 

 markable that he should take the liberty of explaining it at some length. 

 He presumed that most of his audience had visited either the northern 

 or southern side of the Alps ; and those who had been in the plains of 

 Italy, along the Valley of the Po, were well acquainted with the 

 numerous lakes which jutted out from the Alps into the plain of Italy. 

 Commencing on the west, they had got the Lago d'Orta, the Lago 

 Maggiore, the Lago Lugano, the Lago di Como, the Lago dTseo, and 

 the Lago di Garda ; in fact, wherever a great valley projected itself 

 from the chain of the Alps at right angles to the strike of the chain, 

 there they had, with one or two exceptions, uniformly a great lake. 

 Eegarding these lakes in a general way, without reference to detailed 

 phenomena, they found one thing which was constant about them — 

 ' they were invariably narrow, and some forty or fifty miles long, as 

 notably in the case of Maggiore, Como, and Garda.' The next re- 

 markable thing about them was that they invariably radiated out at 

 right angles to the strike of the great chain of the Alps. The Alps 

 made a curve from the Pennine round to the Phoetian Alps. They 

 w T ould also observe that these lakes were severally fed by a consider- 

 able river which proceeded from a high ridge of the chain, and which 

 was thrown forward into the plains of the Valley of the Po. 



If they would consider the Himalayahs, or any tropical range of 

 mountains whatever, in a similar way, they would find that those lake 

 phenomena were invariably wanting. Great rivers like the Indus, the 

 Chenab, the Sutlej , and the Ganges, which passed through the Himalayan 

 Mountains and debouched into the plains of India, had got valleys of 



