DESERTS. 255 
has stood from early glacial time till now with one fixed expression of rock features, 
sun-crumbled and wind-worn. 
It seems possible that when the ice of that first expansion had so far melted 
that the moraine-blocked depression it left, where Kara Kul is now, was free of 
glacier ice, the lake thus created may have risen to the older terraces 320 feet 
above its present surface. But they are so much rounded off and altered by 
erosion that it would not be safe to say definitely that the lake ever stood at that 
level. ) 
A following interglacial epoch was of such long duration that the first-epoch 
moraine had lost its old topography, was gashed by wide valleys, and in the lake 
depression lay buried by lake clays when glaciers of the next expansion pushed 
down upon them in places, where piled-up and distorted layers may still be seen 
in front of overriding moraine. 
end Of Sia Cie. 
sere ea Ss 
com, @>, 300 yards to half 
WY ROCoeR 
& SSD burfed moraine 

Present stream 
iw. 
Cl] Z, LY 
= 

Seo a 
—Glaciers1ce- 
See ene ie 
Ps 
Bluff - section A 

am A and B= glacier ice 
renerecesects®, 
Bed-rock Firstepoch Secondandthird Fourthepoch Glacier ice mmr Bluff shores upto 20feet high 
moraine epochs moraines moraine 
Fig. 434.—Glacier of the Kara-at and a Section of its Valley 1.5 miles Fig. 435.—A Pool where Kara Kul Sediments have caved in 
below (Kara Kul). over Melting Lobes of Glacier Ice. 
The general limits of ice in the second epoch are sufficiently traceable to 
indicate a remarkable difference of outline between it and the first. It may be 
doubted if much, if any, of the region of Kara Kul was free from ice during the 
first epoch’s maximum expansion. A snow-line 3,000 feet lower than its present 
would cover all the Northern Pamir with ice. During the second epoch mountains 
around Kara Kul were mantled with ice apparently reaching about 1,000 feet 
lower than their present ice-dome margins; and from this extended valley-flows 
through gorges cut in massive moraine heaped along the mountain flanks during 
the first epoch. Reaching the plain they spread out as coalescing fans, which in 
some way or other became buried by lake clays. 
There appears to be no doubt of the glacial origin of these lake clays, as they 
are characteristic of glacial grinding, light gray or non-oxidized, with flakes of 
mica and layers containing small angular fragments. ‘They are finely laminated 
and cover a wide area east of the lake. A large proportion lie horizontal, as 
