CHAPTER XXXI. 
TO FORT PAMIR AND BACK 
N August 1 8th I paid a last visit to the Yam-bulak 
glacier, to take out the sticks which I put in on 
August 3rd for the purpose of measuring at what rate 
the glacier moved. The advance during the interval 
of fifteen days was scarcely perceptible. There was 
however a slight movement, most marked towards the 
median line of the glacier, where it amounted to close 
upon one foot a day. I made an interesting observation 
in the neighbourhood of the lateral moraine. The glacier 
there spread out, giving rise to a back current near the 
edge of the ice, resembling in its origin and effects the 
backwater at the side of a river, although the time 
required for the movement to become perceptible must, 
in comparison with its extent, be very long indeed. The 
ice, which might be expected to pile itself up above 
the eddy, is easily kept down by the agents of dissolution. 
The appearance of the ice had very much changed in 
the interval. On the occasion of our first visit it was 
covered with snow and hail. Now, on the contrary, it 
was fully exposed, with edges as sharp as knives, while 
all the stones had sunk into deep holes ; and the ice was, 
as a rule, slippery and dangerous to walk upon. 
On our return we observed a phenomenon which we 
had not remarked before. The pool beside the right 
lateral moraine was situated in a fissure, caused by an 
earthquake, which stretched all the way from the tongue 
of the great Kamper-kishlak glacier to the immediate 
vicinity of the scene of our mea.surements. For the 
most part it was single, but occasionally double, resembling 
;S6 
