92 Notes on the Pangong lake district of LadaJch. [No. 2, 



specimens of Lymncea ; nor did I ever find a living specimen, which 

 I had hoped to do in the upper lakes, where the water was very 

 sightly' brackish. When these shells existed, the former lake most 

 have had quite a different aspect from its present one, and m it must 

 have grown for the sustenance of these molluscs beds of water plants 

 while its banks would have been fringed probably witk grass and 

 rushes In the lower lake there is not a vestige of any sort or kind 

 of plant, the beautifully blue clear water washes a bank of sand and 

 pebbles, the latter perfectly free even of alga,. This is not the case 

 heyond Ote, where the water is much less salt, there the stones under 

 water are extremely slippery and covered with vegetable growth. At 

 this part also, patches of a coarse water weed are also seen here and 

 there along the shore, hut not growing luxuriantly, and evidently 

 making a struggle for existence. The waters of the western end are 

 far more salt than those of that near Ote, noticeable even to the taste, 

 hut it is not until the stream that connects the two portions is fairly 

 entered that it is by any means drinkable ; thence for the whole dis- 

 tance eastward, we used the lake waters save when we had the luck 

 to find a spring of really fresh. By looking out carefully, we discover- 

 ed springs in three places flowing out from under the bank; and m 

 one spot, these springs were bubbling up for some distance out into 

 the lake, rendering the water quite fresh around. It was quite a 

 pleasure to see the poor yaks who carried our baggage take their fill 

 of it when for three days they had drank nothing but salt water. 

 A curious feature of the Pangong is the almost entire absence of 

 streams, whose waters find an exit in it, considering the great area 

 that some of them drain ; for, with the exception of the few glacial 

 rills and the Chushal stream on its south shore, and the stream at the 

 extreme west end, from the Marse Mik La, there are none. The northern 

 shore is particularly dry, not a single rill joins it for its entire distance, 

 until arriving at " Pal," on the upper lake ; and the same may be 

 said of the southern shore, from the Chushal river to Ote, and foi 

 many miles beyond. Many of the ravines have their sources at i 

 considerable distance, but near the lake have broad dry beds from 

 2 to 3, and up to 500 yards in breadth of rubble and sands. I may 

 instance the very large lateral ravine at Ote, the longest branch of 

 which runs back into the snowy mountains of Chang Chungmo, for 



