THROUGH ASIA 
358 
The sound reverberated like thunder near at hand, 
the first echo being flung backwards and forwards many 
times between the rocky walls before it finally died away, 
and was succeeded by the usual silence. But a mist of 
powdered ice-needles hung a long time in front of the 
glacier. Meanwhile we had a splendid opportunity of 
observing how the glacier worked. The ice-mantle kept 
slipping, slipping, ponderous and massive, over the edge 
of the rocks. Again and again it broke off at the crevasses 
and ice-falls; great blocks of ice being precipitated into the 
depths below, and reaching the main glacier in powder as 
fine as flour. This nevertheless melted into its surface, 
and in that way built up a regenerated parasitic glacier. 
From the same considerable altitude we also saw plainly 
how the Chal-tumak glacier was fed from every side by 
fractures from the ice-mantle. 
Where the small patches of crystalline ddbris underlay 
the snow, the latter was longer in melting ; but about 
midday the radiation increased to Ii2°8 Fahr. (44°9 C.), 
and the atmosphere was brilliantly clear and pure. The 
gravel was succeeded by a layer of snow, three to six 
inches thick, which prevented the yaks from slipping, 
although the angle was as much as twenty-four degrees. 
Here we saw the tracks of four kiyick (wild goats). 
The animals fled up the mountain in the direction of 
two swellings of the ice ; and in another place we found 
the skeleton of an animal of the same species lying among 
the snow. 
The naked ice-mantle stretched up before us in all its 
dazzling whiteness. We knew of course quite well that 
it would bear us ; all the same, we felt as if we were 
venturing out on thin ice when we stepped upon this 
unknown tract, never before trodden by the foot of 
man, and where perhaps the many dangers inseparable 
from a glacial landscape threatened us. 
We soon found ourselves in a labyrinth of intersecting 
crevasses, which, however, were as a rule not more than a 
foot broad. We were obliged to steer a zigzag course, 
in order to evade them, since they generally widened 
