332 
THROUGH ASIA 
terminal moraine, 750 to 1000 feet in height. This bore 
rather the appearance of a huge mound of gravel, for the 
material which resulted from attrition gradually fell and 
slipped down the steep mountain-sides. The moraine-mound 
inclined at an angle of thirty-five and a half degrees. 
It was now a question of getting up on the top of 
the great Kamper-kishlak glacier, the left side of which 
we were following, though riding on the moraine. The 
ascent was so steep that we were obliged to leave the 
yaks and proceed on foot, till we reached the solid 
mountain — hard crystalline schist — on the left side of the 
rocky buttresses. The sky was entirely clouded over ; but 
the usual hailstorm did not whiten the ground, as the 
hailstones rolled, hopping and jumping, into the number- 
less crevasses of the moraine, and when the shower 
cleared off, the wet boulders quickly dried in the arid air. 
The glacier extended down its bed in the shape of 
a long flat, narrow spoon, turned alternately up and down, 
and surrounded on all sides by moraine - ridges. On 
the whole its surface was level, with elongated, flattened 
undulations. No transverse crevasses were seen ; but, on 
the other hand, there were two or three very long narrow 
ones running lengthwise down the middle ot the tongue, 
and the whole of the left side of the ice was jagged by 
small fissures set close together at the edge. When we got 
down upon the ice again from the rocks, it became clear 
to me at once how the lateral moraine had been formed. 
Had I taken but one step, I should have slid twenty 
through the loose dt^ris, which continued falling, like 
a landslip, down upon the lateral moraine. 
Once over the fissures at the edge, it was an easy 
matter to walk on the ice, which was sheeted with a thick 
layer of snow. This, however, sometimes concealed longi- 
tudinal crevasses, which we had to feel for with our alpen- 
stocks. A block of gneiss, some 140 cubic feet in extent, 
had dropped through the ice by reason of its weight, 
instead of forming a glacier-table. After we walked about 
six hundred and sixty yards across the glacier (its full 
width was some three-quarters of a mile), farther advance 
