510 
Notes of a trip from Simla to the Spiti Valley. [No. 5, 
. 
to maintain a sufficient scour to keep clear its own channel. The 
result is of course a lake. I am not sufficiently acquainted with the 
surrounding country to account for the feeder becoming more power¬ 
ful than the stream into which it falls ; it is evidently a result of 
change of climate, and it is quite certain that if a considerable body 
of water was again supplied to the lake, it would speedily overtop 
its present barrier, cut a channel through it and eventually drain 
itself, the only requisite being an adequate supply of water to remove 
the obstructions brought down by its feeders and to maintain a pro¬ 
per preponderance of the main stream over its tributaries. To bring 
about such a state of things, a change of level only is required, such 
as we know has repeatedly taken place, with its corresponding change 
in the amount of rain fall; and the same phenomenon, viz. an elevat¬ 
ing movement, which has dwarfed the once mighty inland seas of 
Ladak by curtailing their supply of rain water, has in some places, 
owing to peculiar and local circumstances, produced precisely oppo¬ 
site phenomena and actually given rise to lakes where none existed 
before. 
The bottom of the lake is in some places near the shore covered 
with waving patches of a long grass-like weed; but I noticed no fish, 
though 1 doubt their absence from the lake, as in the stream below 
it I noticed small fish, though I was unable to secure any, and in the 
Spiti river I observed fish in water of only 41°. 
Several wild horses or kiangs inhabit the shores of the lake, 
usually occupying the gravelly plain spread out across its east¬ 
ern end, though when alarmed they take to the hills. Burrel are I 
believe to be got among the hills, and I was told of a flock of ovis 
ammon which used to frequent the neighbourhood of the lake but 
which was driven away some years since by an unusually severe 
winter and has not been seen since. 
A few old geese and several flocks of goslings just commencing to 
fly were the only birds I saw. One large flock of goslings I noticed 
on the side of a high hill, and at sight of me they ascended to a 
much greater height than I cared to follow them to on a march. A 
few totani or snippets were seen in a marshy flat at the mouth of the 
valley, but I was disappointed at the paucity of birds, after the ac¬ 
counts I had heard of their abundance. 
1 6th, Iiorzo , 14,450 ft.—The road lies along the west border of the 
