PHYSICAL FEATURES. 29 



line of perpetual snow, which, it has been ascer- 

 tained, 1 ranges between 15,500 and 16,000 feet 

 sea-level along the southern chain, and at a somewhat higher elevation 

 along the northern chain and the Tibetan ranges beyond. Nearly 

 every one of the high valleys situated within the limits of perpetual 

 snow has its glacier. Some of them are of very large proportions ; 

 for instance, one of the Raikana glaciers near Niti is 74, the other 

 8 miles long. The Nanda Devi is surrounded by huge glaciers : two, 

 which descend from this mountain mass on its north side, are re- 

 spectively 12 and 14 miles long, whilst the Bagini glacier is 10 miles, 

 and the Kosa 7^ miles in length. 



Several very large glaciers are found in the Mana and Gangotri 

 area; the three branches of the Gangotri glacier are respectively 14, 

 15 and 5 miles long. The Mana glacier, a huge sheet of ice and 

 moraines, is fully 16 miles long. 



To describe any of these enormous glaciers in detail would be 

 quite superfluous after the excellent account General R. Strachey 

 has given of the Pindari glacier 2 ; its features are so similar in every 

 respect to those of many others, that I may therefore refer to that 

 paper as being a summary of what may be said of the glaciers of 

 the Himalayas generally. In the frontispiece will be seen (1) the 

 middle part of one of these glaciers (Kedarnath), which, comparatively 

 speaking, has a gladual slope downwards and is completely covered 

 with the angular debris ; (2), the upper portion or catchment area of 

 the glacier which, enclosed in a steep trough, is not only free from 

 debris, but cut up by lateral crevasses. In fig. 4 a copy from a photo- 

 graph, an end moraine is seen, pushed along by the long and almost 

 level tongue of the end of the Bambadhura glacier. I have also shown 

 in pi. 14, the great glacier streams which, more or less parallel, 

 descend from the Bambadhura heights down to the Lissar valley ; the 

 Lissar river itself has to erode its bed through the end moraines of 

 successive glaciers which project into the valley from the ravines 

 on the right side. 



1 Jour. As. Soc. Beng., XVIII, 287, etc., etc. 



* Jour. As. Soc. Beng., XVI, 794, 812, ; ib., XVII, pt. II, 203—205, etc. 



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