SNOW.
Snow is not known to fall in any part of British India south of the Himalaya. The anow-line of Kamaon was stated by Humboldt at 11,700 feet, but higher than this are flourishing agricultural villages and luxuriant vegetation. In every part of the Himalaya, and of Western Tibet, wherever the mountains attain sufficient elevation to be covered with perpetual snow, glaciers aro to be found. In the lofty chain of the Ci3 and Trans Sutlej Himalaya, and of.the Konen Ltm, whose peaks rise to a very great height, and collect in winter enormous depths of snoty, they are of great length. In the central parts of Tibet, which are often lower, and, even in their loftiest parts, are less snowy, than the bounding chains, the glaciers are of inferior dimensions, where the snow-bed is at once cut off abruptly in an ico cliff, which can hardly be said to be in motion, or rather whose motion must be almost entirely from above downwards. Moraines which, on the larger glaciers and among mountains of easily demying rocks are of astonishing dimensions, form the margins of each glacier, and also occur longi tudinally. The annual rising of the rivers Indus and Ganges depends to a great extent on the melt ing of snows on the mountains. The permanent flooding of the Euphrates is also caused by the melting of the snow in the mountains along the upper part of its course.- This takes place about the beginning of March, and it increases gradually up to the time of barley harvest, or about the last days in May, when it is usually of its greatest height. In the report of the Proceedings of the Magnetic Survey, it is mentioned that the pheno menon of the illumination of snowclad mountains after sunset (analogous to the glowing of the Alpine snows) was seen several times in those nights when there was no moon. it was seen
particularly well near Chibra, to the north of Kara-koruni. Judging of it, as seen there, it was thought to be quite indepeudent of a spontaneous development of light front snow, and evidently caused by an illumination of the snow-fields from the west-north-western parts of the sky. This illumination is only visible after a certain time after the sun has set, namely, when the projectioa of the earth's shade luu3 reached an angular height exceeding that of the mountains, and when the atmospheric light has decreased so much that the atmosphere behind the mountains reflects less light than the snow-clad slopes of the mountains exposed to the west-north-west. The Ladle!' valey, says Dr. Hooker, remains almost level for sevend miles, the road running along the east bank of the Lachen. Shoots of stones descend front the ravines, all of a white, fine-grained granite, stained retl with a minute conferva, which has been taken by Himalayan travellers for red snow, a pheno menon Dr. Ilooker never saw in Sikkim. Red snow was; never found in the antarctic regions during Sir James Ross' South Polar voyage; nor does Dr. llooker know any authentic record of its having been seen in the Himalaya. — Hooker's Himalayan Journal, p. 118 ; Magnetic Surrey of India, p. 8.