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shaped like a half moon. This is in reality a mass of dark-colored ice (bottle-green color), extending westward to a great distance, and covered with stones and fragments of rock, which in fact form a succession of small hills. I went along this scene of desolation for a long space, but could not nearly reach the end. Here and there where circular and irregularly shaped craters (as it were) from 50 to 500 feet in diameter at top, and some of them 150 feet deep. The ice was frequently visible on the sides, and at the bottom was a dirty sea-green-colored pool of water, apparently very deep. The bases of the hills on either side, and frequently far up their faces, are one succession of landslips; but from their distance, I do not believe it possible that the debris in the centre of the snow-bed valley, can have fallen there from the side hills." Lieut. Weller also says of the same glacier in his journal published in the Journal Asiatic Society, No. 134:-" The mass of desolation, as described at the source of the Goree, continues thus far up-that is about 4 miles, and how much farther no one will or can tell me. The fissures hereabouts are narrow, instead of being crater-like, and the ice when visible is more nearly the color of snow. On the opposite (south) side, huge accumulations of ice and gravel are to be seen in the openings between the hills;-once on either side, I had a view of the old ice high upon the hills; its light sea-green color, with strongly defined and fantastical lines of shape (castles, stairs, &c.) formed a very pleasing and grand appearance." This glacier is known to be 6 or 7 miles long; its lower extremity is at 11,600 feet above the sea. In the published journals of travellers in the Himalaya, that I have seen, I have not met with any other accounts of glaciers sufficiently distinct to be worth quoting, though we not unfrequently come across a snow-bed that seems suspicious. I am however fully satisfied of the actual existence of many other glaciers, both from the verbal accounts of Mr. Batten, who has been a resident in Kumaon for many years, of my brother, Mr. H. Strachey, who visited several of the passes into Tibet last year, and of the Bhotias (the natives of the valleys immediately below the snowy ranges), and from having myself had distant views of several.

From these sources I am able to affirm positively, the existence of glaciers at the heads of the following rivers ;-viz., the Vishnoogunga (near Budrinath); the Kylgunga, the Koourgurh, the Soondurdoonga,

all rising from the southern side of Tresool and Nunda Devee; the Ramgunga (that which falls into the Surjoo, not the great river of the same name); the Piltee, an affluent of the Goree; and the Gonka which rises near the Oonta-doora or Joohar pass into Tibet.

I therefore conclude, that in the Himalaya, as in the Alps, almost every valley that descends from the ranges covered with perpetual snow, has at its head a true glacier; and in spite of M. Elie de Beaumont's ingenious fact, that the seasons here "have no considerable variations of temperature," and that "the thaw and frost do not separately penetrate far enough to convert the snow into ice;" I am of opinion, that the very great intensity of all atmospheric influences, including variations of temperature, should render these mountains one of the most favorable fields for the investigation of glacial phenomena.

APPENDIX.

A short account of the principal Phenomena of Glaciers, abstracted from chapters 2, 8 and 21 of Professor Forbes' Travels through the Alps of Savoy, &c.

Perpetual Snow.-The atmosphere becoming colder as we ascend in it, the tops of mountains that are more than a certain height above the level of the sea, are always covered with snow ;-this height is greatest at the equator, where it is about 16,000 feet, and gradually diminishes towards the poles, where the natural covering of the earth is ice and

snow.

Snow Line.-The snow line is an imaginary line passing through those places, at which the snow which falls in one complete revolution of the seasons, is just melted in that time, and no more.

Glaciers.-The common form of a glacier is a mass of ice, that extends from the region of perpetual snow, into the lower valleys, which are clothed with vegetation; and that sometimes even reaches to the borders of cultivation. The snow line on the glacier, is somewhat lower than on neighboring parts of the mountains; but below it, the snow is melted and disappears from the surface of the ice, as regularly and entirely, as from that of the country into which the glacier descends.

Motion. The existence of the glacier in such comparatively warm situations, can only be accounted for by supposing, that its daily waste is supplied by its daily descent, and that its terminal face which appears unmoveable is in fact perpetually changing. Therefore when the total waste exceeds the total motion the glacier appears to recede up the valley; when the converse happens, the end of the glacier advances; when the two are exactly the same it remains in the same position.

Rivers rising from Glaciers.-The waste of the glacier from the action of the sun and rain, gives rise to a stream of turbid water, which issues from the extremity of the ice, out of a cave.

General form of glaciers.-Glaciers vary in their dimensions, up to 3 miles in width and 12 in length. The lower portion is usually very steep; the middle has only a moderate slope; the upper again is more inclined. The sides when exposed are also very steep. The surface is more or less undulating, the irregularities in a great measure arising from the action of the water, that collects from the surface drainage, and forms streams of considerable size.

Crevasses. The ice is considerably broken up, by fissures or rents, called crevasses; these are usually vertical in their direction, and of widths varying from a few inches to many feet, sometimes extending almost from side to side of the glacier.

Moraines.-The rocks and debris, that fall upon the ice from the cliffs that usually bound the glacier, instead of accumulating where they fall, as they would do if the ice were stationary, are carried down as it advances, and form continued lines along the sides of the glacier. Their stony borders are called moraines.

Lateral Moraines.-Those moraines that are formed on the sides of the glacier, as just described, are called lateral moraines.

Medial Moraines.-When two glaciers from different sources meet, the inner moraines of the two unite, and continue to move on together down the compound glacier, which but for this mark would at a short distance below the point of union be undistinguishable from a simple

one.

Such a moraine, having clear ice on both sides of it is said to be a medial moraine.

Elevation of Moraines.-From the protection given to the ice below by the rocks of the moraine, it appears to rise gradually above the general surface of the glacier, which on the other hand is constantly

being depressed by the action of sun and rain, while the protected parts of the ice remains unmelted. The moraine is not a mound of debris, as it appears at first sight, but an icy ridge, covered with rocks, sometimes with a breadth of some hundreds of feet, and raised from 50 to 80 feet above the general level of the ice.

Glacier Tables.-Single blocks of stone lying on the ice, appear from the same cause to raise themselves above the surrounding surface, upon pedestals of ice ;-these are called glacier tables.

Glacier Cones.-An accumulation of sand which sometimes forms in holes in the ice, in like manner protects the surface beneath it, and by a curious inversion of its shape forms a pyramid or glacier cone, sometimes 20 or 30 feet high and 80 or 100 feet in circumference.

Baignoirs.-An operation strangely converse of this takes place, when a small cavity forms in the ice, and becomes filled with water, but with no considerable quantity of debritus. Water just freezing is lighter than water at a temperature somewhat higher; the water at 32° therefore floats on the surface of the other. When therefore the surface of the water in the pool becomes heated by the sun's rays a little above 32°, it immediately sinks, and by communicating its extra heat to the bottom of the cavity, melts and deepens it, and being cooled, is ready to rise again to the surface in its turn.

Structure of ice.-The ice of which a glacier is composed, consists of bands or laminae of blue compact ice, alternating with others of a lighter color, not less perfect but filled with countless air bubbles. This peculiar structure gives to a glacier all its extreme brittleness. The difference of hardness of the strata, causes the surface of the glacier in many parts to appear striated with fine lines, and when groups of harder bands occur, there are projecting ridges with grooves between them, much resembling ruts in a muddy road.

Direction of structural planes.-The direction of the bands or veins is explained in fig. 9, which shows an imaginary section of a glacier. The strata of ice lie like a succession of shells one within the other.

Cause of veined structure.—The origin of the veined structure, seems not be altogether satisfactorily explained; but the direction of the veins, and the form of the structural surfaces, is well accounted for by Professor Forbes, as the effect of the different velocities of the different parts of the ice, which as in running water is greatest in the centre

and at the surface where the friction is least, and vice versa. To enter more fully on this matter is beyond my proposed object.

Névé. That part of the glacier above the line of perpetual snow, is called the névé. It is composed of granular snow alternating with bands of ice and has the appearance of being regularly stratified in beds parallel to its surface. The passage of névé into true glacier ice, is also a point not satisfactorily explained.

Zur Litteratur und Geschichte des Weda. Drei Abhandlungen von Rudolph Roth, Doctor der Philosophie. Stuttgart, 1846. (On the Literature and History of the Veda. Three Treatises, by Rudolph Roth, Ph. Dr., Stuttgart, 1846.)

(Translated by J. MUIR. Esq. C. S.)

This little book, containing as it evidently does the results of profound and accurate research, is a valuable addition to our knowledge of the structure and contents of the several Vedas, and of the interpretative literature to which these ancient books gave rise. Some account of the brochure will, it appears to me, be acceptable to the Society, at the time when it has just undertaken the publication of the whole text of the Vedic hymns. Dr. Roth's book consists of three treatises; the first entitled "The Hymn Collections," extends, with excursuses and remarks, from pp. 1 to 52. The second is headed "The oldest Vedic Grammar, or the Prátísákhya Sútras, pp. 53-86. The third (pp. 87-144) bears the title "Historical matter in the Rig Veda; Vasishthá's contest with Viswamitra." The contents of the first treatise will be fully learnt from the following translation of it entire, with one of the notes, which I hope may be considered admissible into the pages of the Society's Journal. The second treatise enters into detail in regard to the Prátísákhya Sútras, of which some account has previously been given in the first. The third quotes and translates some hymns from the Rig Veda, which contain traces of a conflict between the rival priestly houses of Vasishtha and Viswamitra, and record the names and wars of a number of petty tribes who at that early period occupied the Punjab. The whole of Dr. Roth's book,

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