Southern Tibet : vol.7 / 603 ページ（カラー画像）

0603	Southern Tibet : vol.7
南チベット : vol.7

middle of the glacier. A big nameless glacier comes in from the north. Height of
camp: 15,240 feet.

Of the side glaciers he says:

Between Hispar and Haigutum the glacier receives numerous tributaries both from
north and south. Above Haigutum the northern tributary glaciers become more numerous
and larger, but the Haigutum glacier is the last tributary from the south. The ridge
that runs from the Nushik to the Hispar pass, rises in a mighty wall direct from the sur-
face of the glacier . . . .

Finally he reaches the Hispar Pass, 17,650 feet, and the Hispar Glacier comes
to an end. Suspecting schrunds in front, east, he says: »We remembered how in all
parts of this mountain range there had evidently, in recent years, been a vast in-
crease in the store of snow at high levels.» They had heard of the blocking of
the Hispar Pass by some change in the glaciers, by which the level of the Snow
Lake near the pass may have been raised. They passed the schrunds easily, however,
and they had the Biafo Glacier in front of them. The Snow Lake camp was at an
absolute height of 16,300 feet. Already the next camp is at 14,230 only. July 20th
they followed the medial moraine downwards. Two days later an excursion was
made to the mouth of the Latok Glacier.¹

Thus far from the level of the great Snow Lake, the glacier had been broad,
even, and of gentle slope. But then it becomes narrower and steeper. The progress
becomes more difficult and fatiguing. After an excursion a bit up Biafo he continued,
July 25th, amongst growing moraines. A strong stream of water was flowing along
the edge of the clear ice before it disappeared in a blue funnel. Conway has many
striking and picturesque examples of how a glacier is fed by precipitation, and how
rivers are fed from the accumulated snow and ice.

The end of the Biafo opens out into a kind of fan. Formerly the glacier calmly
flowed over a mound of rock at its end, but now it must stop behind it, and it is
only a feeble arm that is pushed between it and the mountain side.

At Camp Askole the height was 10,360 feet, and at the foot of the ice of
the Biafo Glacier, 10,120 feet. Here Conway makes the following comparison:

When Godwin-Austen was here (Korofon, Biafo snout) in 1861 the Biafo glacier
abutted against the rocky foot of the mountain mass called Mango (south of, in front of
snout), and the Biafo river flowed beneath it. Now the glacier has so far retreated that
the river flows in open daylight and has stony plains exposed on either bank, the foot of
the glacier being about a quarter of a mile short of its old position. I could discover
no clear signs of the ice advancing again, indeed, the contrary seemed rather to be the
case. These trifling variations in the length of a huge glacier like the Biafo are, however,
of little account. The Biafo glacier is, under any circumstances, small compared with the

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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
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