ss 
Records of the Geological Survey of India. 
[voi,. vn. 
whore the moraine has either ceased or become wasted and enveloped in deposits due to 
atmospheric and fluvial agency as opposed to glacial, the more so as the moraines themselves 
have, since the period of their final arrest, been everywhere subjected to the energetic opera¬ 
tion of the former forces. The actual limits, however, within which it is doubtful if glaciers 
_ „ , ... ...... formerly extended or not, from the disintegration and 
Power of denudation to obliterate J ° 
moraines regulated by conditions of rounding off by subsequent atmospheric action of their ter- 
HmlL “ °‘ minal moraines, are extremely narrow; but the vast power of 
denudation in particular places, and under favorable conditions of surface, and the ability 
of the existing rivers to remove every trace of former moraines, is in many places well 
illustrated in the area under review. 
From general considerations there can be little or no doubt, that the valley of the Bias 
afforded passage to a noble glacier, to a point at least as low down as Nadaon, which would 
give a course of 120 miles in length from the snow-fields at the sources of the river; but 
the present main channel of the river has since that period been so deeply and sharply 
excavated that not a trace (or such at least as a cursory examination would enable one to 
detect) exists of a moraine, such as we know must have resulted from and marked the course 
of so extensive a glacier. At Sujanpur the moraine of the 
Sujinpur (glacier). Moraine Suianptir glacier is seen pushed right across the present 
breached by the Bias. J , 1 
channel of the Bias, at a much higher level than that oi 
the present stream, which has made a clean and deep cut through it; yet, though the erratic 
blocks scattered round tbe Traveller’s Bungalow at Sujanpur, and all over tbe truncated end 
of tbe moraine on tbe opposite side of tbe river, are of a large size, not a trace of one can 
be seen in tbe river bed beneath. This fact conclusively shows the power of the existing 
rivers (where from their narrowed channel, as at Sujanpur, their effective force is largely 
increased) to utterly remove all traces of such deposits as these old moraines even where they 
contain massive boulders of 12 feet in girth and upwards ; or what is rather more likely 
than any actual transport of such blocks is, that when once fairly suoked into tbe waterway, 
they are pounded to pieces by the incessant impact against them of the hard silicious 
boulders driven forcibly against them during floods. No one who has listened to the 
ceaseless thunder and muffled rattle of a swollen Himalayan stream can doubt the full power 
of such an agent to effect in time the above result. 
Again, between Mandi and the bridge over the Bias, below that town, undoubted traces 
are met with of the old trunk moraine of tko Bias valley, 
Trunk glacier of Bids. ■, , • , q 
where the present valley is rather open; but just above 
and for a long way below the bridge, the river gorge is swept perfectly clean, as with a 
besom, of all traces of a moraine, such as may he noticed a little higher up; and this would 
seem to he generally the case where the valley narrows, or is unusually precipitous, either in 
the main channel of the Bias, or in the channels of its tributaries, the power of moraines to 
withstand the erosive action of rain and rivers depending far more on the physical character 
of the gorges they occupy, and the slopes whereon they repose, than on either their bulk and 
dimensions or the magnitude and character of the materials of which they are composed. 
The TJ1 (Ool) river which enters the Bias above Mandi takes its rise in the continuation 
of that line of snowy peaks whence the glaciers of the 
Kangra district descended, and no one who has examined 
the district, or has a tolerable map to consult, can entertain the shadow of a doubt that an 
enormous glacier must have once traversed the valley of 
Absence on it of moraines, due to y_, e pji debouching into the Bias valley and uniting with 
its physical configuration, * ° 
the great trunk glacier of that river above Mandi. But 
no trace of any moraine could be detected in that portion of the U1 valley near Jatingri 
