596 Glaciers of the Pindur and Kuphinee Rivers. [Aug. 



The valley of the Pindur, at the termination of the Glacier, is about 

 a mile across between the precipitous mountains that bound it. From 

 the foot of the rocks on either side, its bottom slopes inwards with a 

 moderate inclination, leaving in the middle a hollow about 300 yards 

 wide and 250 feet deep, with very steep banks, at the bottom of which 

 flows the river. This comparatively level space, between the central 

 hollow in which the river runs and the precipitous sides of the valley, 

 its surface running nearly parallel with the present bed of the river, 

 but from 200 to 300 feet above it, can be distinctly seen for a mile or 

 more below the end of the Glacier. The plateau itself, as well as the 

 steep banks between it and the bed of the river, are considerably cut 

 up by water courses running across them from the sides of the valley, 

 but every where they have an almost perfectly rounded outline. 



The whole of the bottom of the valley is covered with grass, or those 

 species of plants that grow in these elevated regions, excepting where 

 beds of snow, rocks, or the debris of the mountains interrupt the vege- 

 tation. 



The Glacier (Fig. 2,) occupies about § of the whole breadth of the 

 head of this valley, leaving between itself and the cliffs on the east, an 

 open grassy slope, which extends along the foot of the moraine for 

 upwards of a mile and a half above the source of the river, and which 

 seems to be a continuation of the plateau I before mentioned. 



The first appearance is remarkable ; it seems to be a vast rounded 

 mass of rocks and ground, utterly devoid of any sign of vegetation, 

 standing up out of a grassy valley. From the foot of its nearer ex- 

 tremity the river, even here unfordable, rushes in a turbid torrent out 

 of a sort of cave, the top of which when I saw it was but a few feet 

 above the surface of the water. The end immediately over the source 

 of the river is very steep and of a dull black color. It is considerably 

 fissured ; the rents appearing to arise from the lower parts tearing 

 themselves from the upper by their own weight. On a closer examin- 

 ation, this abrupt end proves to be a surface of ice, covered with sand 

 and gravel, and curiously striped by the channel made by the water 

 that runs down it as it melts. Behind this the glacier rises less steeply, 

 like a bare gravel hill to its full height, which is probably about 500 

 feet above the water of the river, when it leaves the cave ; in some 

 places however are seen great fissures both vertical and horizontal, the 



