400 A JOURNEY TO LAKE 



cealed by the fnow: about noon the ridges between the ravines are 

 cleared, but it remains in the clefts and gorges : and from three to 

 the following morning the mountain has a new covering. This fuccef- 

 iive depofition and melting go on during the warm months. But, in 

 the cold weather, when the mountaineers are. obliged to quit their habi- 

 tations, and leave them to be taken poffeffion of by fuch wild animals 

 as prefer them to taking an afylum in caverns and glens; the whole fur- 

 face of the valleys, as well as mountains, is richly covered with fnow, 

 which in fome parts melts under the influence of heat and of rain but 

 in others remains continually. This ma fs of melted fnow on the vaft 

 ranges of mountains forms the great rivers which proceed from them. 



When we arrived, the Nit t river, about ten yards broad and from two 

 to four feet, deep,, fent down a rapid ft-rearnof greenifh but clear water. 

 The two following .days were very hot: the ftream was on the 3d, at 

 leaft a foot deeper, and confiderably broader ;.,and the water is, clay 

 coloured and turbid. I have frequently obferve'd, that the water mark 

 early in the morning upon the Hones in the iwer was a foot and even 

 eighteen inches above the level of the ftream at that time of the day, and 

 that the river always rofe confiderably towards jthe evening. This is 

 eafily explained by the cold of the night produced by the fnow on the 

 mountains fufpending the melting procefs, and of courfe interrupting 

 the fupply until the heat of the following day quickens it again. Such 

 ta furface of mountainous country, in, fuch a (late, along with the vail 

 declivity of the beds of the rivers, will afford a more fatisfaclory ex- 

 planation of the real fources of the Ganges than the deriving it from 

 a lake which mull have fome continual fource of fupply itfelf. 



The birch trees upon the (ides of the mountains, as well as the fjnall 

 rofe bufhes, are jud breaking into leaf; the furze is juffc coming into 



