114 Notes on the Pangong lake district of Ladalch. [No. 2, 



is still very considerable, though not equal to that of the Chushal 

 stream I had now finished the whole of my work, and went on 

 that day as far as Miiglib, thence to Tangse, where I paid up my 

 coolies and for yaks, &c. The men had behaved very well, never 

 had I any occasion to be put out with them. From Tankse I re- 

 turned to the Indus valley over the mountains by way of the Kay 

 La, 18,256 feet. The Kay Loomba river is fringed with grass 

 and bushes for a considerable distance up, and at a height of 16,300 

 feet flows out of a lake about 400 to 500 yards long, of very deep 

 clear water. It owes its origin to a large landslip from the left 

 side of the ravine, by which cause a very considerable portion of 

 the hill side has moved forward and been disrupted. The rock is 

 granitoid, the same as the Chang La, and forms the main axis of 

 this mountain chain between the Indus and Shayok. From the lake 

 to the pass, the scenery was wild as wild could be ; near its source 

 the ravine turned south and was nearly level for some distance, 

 finally ending amid a mass of scattered rocks, debris, and snow j 

 large beds of which still filled the ravines and lay in patches on the 

 summit of the ridge.. The wind blew with great violence from the 

 west-south-west on reaching the pass, with that cutting, piercing, 

 unsparing manner it does at these elevations; behind the shelter 

 of some rocks I boiled the thermometers, and then descended intoj 

 the valley below. All my followers now on the return journey 

 walked their best ; and by the evening we were well into the culti-j 

 yation of the valley above Chimray. The next day I reached Leh, 

 and was glad to meet some brother Surveyors, also on their return 

 from their respective surveys. 



In the foregoing pages, reference has often been made to the great 

 accumulations of boulders, gravels more or less angular, clays and 

 sands, near Tankse and in the Chang Chungmo ; it is necessary to 

 add a few words in conclusion regarding the cause I assign for their 

 formation. This is, I think, clearly glacial. Proofs are not wanting 

 that, in ages past, the valleys of the Himalaya contained glaciers of 

 enormous fength and thickness, the only prototypes of which are to 

 be seen in those now filling the valleys of the Karakoram, far north 

 in Baltistan. About half way between the villages of Kungun and 



