298 On the Snow-line in the Himalaya. [April? 



s tres tranchee' at 11,500 feet. I have already shewn that I found the 

 same thing myself at Pinduri, where the snow in the autumn had all 

 disappeared up to 15,000 feet or more. If his visit had been made in 

 January he would probably have found the snow below 8000 feet, but 

 this is not perpetual snow. 



These heights therefore must all be rejected ; nor can it be consi- 

 dered at all surprising that any amount of mistake as to the height of 

 the snow line should be made, as long as travellers cannot distinguish 

 snow from glacier ice, or look for the boundary of perpetual snow at 

 the beginning of the spring. 



2. Northern limit of the belt of 'perpetual snow. — My own observa- 

 tions on the snow-line in the northern part of the chain were made in 

 September, 1848, on my way from Milam into Hundes, via Unta-dhiira, 

 Kyungar-ghat and Balch-dhura, at the beginning of the month ; and on 

 the road back again via Lakhur-ghat at the end of the month. 



Of the three passes that we crossed on our way from Milam, all of 

 them being about 17,700 feet in elevation, the first is Unta-dhura, and 

 we saw no snow on any part of the way up to its very top, which we 

 reached at about 4 p. m. in a very disagreeable drizzle of rain and snow. 

 The final ascent to the pass from the south is about a thousand feet ; it 

 is very .steep at the bottom and covered with fragments of black^slaty 

 limestone. The path leads up the side of a ravine, down which a small 

 stream trickles, the ground having a generally even and rounded surface. 

 Neither on any part of this, nor on the summit of the pass itself, which 

 is tolerably level, were there any remains of snow whatever ; the ground 

 being worked up into deep black mud by the feet of the cattle that had 

 been lately returning to Milam. On the ridge to the right and left 

 there were patches of snow a few hundred feet above ; and on the 

 northern face of the pass an accumulation remained that extended about 

 200 feet down, apparently the effect of the drift through the gap in 

 which the pass lies. Below this again the ground was everywhere quite 

 free from snow. On the ascent to Unta-dhura, at perhaps 17,000 feet, 

 a few blades of grass were seen, but on the whole it may be said to have 

 been utterly devoid of vegetation. On the north side of the pass, 3 or 

 400 feet below the summit, a Cruciferous plant was the first that was 

 met with. 



The Kyungar pass, which is 5 or 6 miles north of Unta-dhura, 



