Southern Tibet : vol.2 / 284 ページ（カラー画像）

0284	Southern Tibet : vol.2
南チベット : vol.2

snow, probably the accumulation of ages; — it is in layers of some feet thick, each
seemingly the remains of a fall of a separate year . . . The height of the arch of
snow is only sufficient to let the stream flow under it.

In this description it is easy to recognise honest, solid glacier ice. Believing
this accumulated snow to be the first appearance of the famous and true Ganges in
day light, Hodgson measured it, and found it on an average to be 27 feet broad
and 15 inches deep.

Then he proceeds to give some account of this bed or valley of snow, which
gives rise to the Ganges. He does not find it surprising that the melting of such
vast masses of ›snow‹ in the valley can give rise to the young Ganges. ›In this
manner, all the Himalaya rivers, whose heads I have visited, and passed over, are
formed; they all issue in a full stream from under thick beds of snow.‹ He was
fully satisfied that even if he had gone farther than he did in the snow bed, he
would not again have seen the river, and that the place where it made its appear-
ance, or at the very front of the bed, was the real and first debouche of the
Bhagirathi.

He does not think that at the head of the surrounding snowy mountains there
can be any practicable or useful pass to the ›Tartarian districts‹. And beyond the
surrounding ridges he does not believe in the existence of any still higher part of
the river or any lake from which it could come, but that the ridge must mark its
uppermost frontier.

Hodgson also reached the ice-bound source of the Jumna, and he intended to
explore the sources of the Tonse, Satlej and Jahnavi.

Seeing crevasses in the glaciers for the first time in his life he believed they
were formed by earthquakes or hot springs; he suggests that the hot springs may
be a provision of nature to insure a supply of water to the heads of the great
rivers, in the winter.

Hodgson was an able man and did a wonderful piece of work for his time. ¹
The most interesting observation he made was that all Himalayan rivers he had seen
were fed by glaciers.

The next example I would give is presented by RICHARD STRACHEY who, in
1847, visited the upper parts of the Pindar and Kuphinee rivers. ² He points to the
fact that the natural philosophers of Europe still considered the existence of glaciers
in the Himalayas a matter of doubt.

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国立情報学研究所 - ディジタル・シルクロード・プロジェクト 『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

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国立情報学研究所 - ディジタル・シルクロード・プロジェクト
『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ