fAKT 3.] 
Theilalil: Ike K a maun Lakes. 
175 
It will not bo contonclecl, I think, and certainly not by myself, that tho 
Knmann district is distinguished cceterk parihus, as regards climate or as regards 
any occult orographical features, fi’om any similar and corresponding ai’ea of the 
Himalayan region in general. If, then, the Knmann lakes arc duo to glaciers, 
and if (as I hold) similar glacial conditions extended far and wide beyond tho 
limits of Knmann, how comes it, it may not impertinently be asked, that tho 
entire Himalayan region is not similarly dotted over with lakes, large and small, 
as in a part of Knmann ? How comes a cause, exercised over so wide an area, 
to be attested by results confined within such narrow limits ? For my part 1 
frankly accept tho first deduction, and believe that tho entire Himalayan region 
was once dotted over with lakes, originating in the same causes and in tho .same 
manner as those of Kuinaun, but from the physical or peti’ological character of 
the rocks in the vicinage of the Kumaun lakes they have remained (or many 
of them), whilst the great majority of the lakes of contcmporiiry origin over the 
entire Himalayan region have disappeared under the operation of or’dinary denu¬ 
dational forces. Malwa Tdl illustrates, in my opinion, the process in question. 
It is one of the largest lakes in Kumaun, and possesses out of all comparison 
the largest catchment. Under any circumstances of origin, wo might theroforo 
expect a barrier of corresponding dimensions. But ‘ barrier ’ there is none save 
the artificial sluice wall. True, one may potter about the outfall without detect¬ 
ing rock ill situ, but there is nothing analogous to tho molc-liko mass which 
constitutes tho ‘ barriers ’ of the other lakes. Doubtless the reason is, the flood 
waters of its large catchment area have swept the w'holo away, and tho lake 
O’Wes its continued existence to the fact of its having been endowed with not 
only a barrier, but a true rock basin liko’udso. Tho one has disappeared, the 
other remains. This, it may bo alleged, is more supposition, but it is not 
unwarranted, I think, by tho circumstances, for other raison cV etre for this lake 
save a rock basin, I can imagine none. 
The hard limestones, Haps, and trap-like schists, of this part of Kumaun 
readily break up into a confused heap of fragments of all sizes, and tho fragments 
heaped together (as I argue in the shape of moraines) form an obstacle, practi¬ 
cally, in most cases, unassailable by the slender supply of water passed over 
them. In such a case as Malwa Till 'vvitli its largo catchment area, tho ‘barrier’ 
does go. In Naini TM and perhaps other instances, the said ‘ barrier ’ becomes 
attacked in places, and undercut and partially enguliAed in the chasm formed 
by the stream, which is 'nholly powerless to remove it in any more direct fashion, 
whilst in the smaller lakes, -with no catchment area to speak of, beyond their 
sloping sides, we see the pent up waters finding their way out by iiorcolation, 
through the loose materials which surround them. 
I doubt not moreover that an additional argument and illustration of the 
view hero set forth will be found when tho lakes high up on the frontier of 
Northern Hazara come to be examined. These, too, clearly have very small catch¬ 
ment areas, to which, as in Kumaun, their survival is probably due, but political 
considerations at iiresont stand in tho way of a European spending much time in 
the neighbourhood of the independent hill tribes in that qu.arter. 
