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Prominent Features of Its Structure Authors(S): William Hunter Workman Source: the Geographical Journal, Vol Prominent Features of Its Structure Authors(s): William Hunter Workman Source: The Geographical Journal, Vol. 35, No. 2 (Feb., 1910), pp. 115-129 Published by: geographicalj Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1776944 Accessed: 30-03-2016 11:33 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Wiley, The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Geographical Journal http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 139.86.7.217 on Wed, 30 Mar 2016 11:33:34 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 115 THE HISPAR GLACIER. Ten days later we crossed the Hispar pass to the head of Snow lake. I would here refer to Sir M. Conway's review of our book ' Ice-bound Heights of the Mustagh,' in the July, 1908, Geographical Journal, in which he says of Cornice glacier, just mentioned, "This glacier is a tributary of the Biafo." On his map he makes a large tributary enter Snow lake through its western wall at the point shown in this photo- graph. No break occurs in the wall here, and no glacier enters either here or for many miles further down, through the western Biafo wall. Our observations of the wall on its western side from Col des Aiguilles and mine from the Watershed peak, show conclusively that Cornice glacier is not a tributary of, and has no connection whatever with, the Biafo. We:wished to cross the Biafo and ascend the glacier east of B 15 to see if a caravan passage could be discovered to the Punmah glacier, but not a coolie could be persuaded to enter on the journey. Savoye and a -porter went alone to the end of the east glacier, which they found closed. They then took a north branch, and ascended a steep col at its head, from which they saw a glacier flowing in the direction of the Punmah, as placed on existing maps, but the sharp col, heavily covered with new snow, was found quite impossible for coolies. By using snow- shoes on the glacier, and marching from 6 a.m. till midnight, they were able to make these observations. We ended our summer's exploration by descending the Biafo, reaching Askole August 27. II. PROMINENT FEATURES OF ITS STRUCTURE. By WILLIAM HUTNTER WORKMAN, M.A, M.D, F.R.G.S. AMONG the ice-bound heights of the Karakoram, in one of the most snowy of Asiatic mountain-regions, in a parallelogram bounded by 35? 40' and 36? 20' lat. N. and 74? 50' and 76? 40' long. E., lies a group of four of the world's greatest mountain-glaciers, three of which, the Biafo, the Chogo Lungma, and the Hispar, with many of their branches, have been explored from end to end by Mrs. F. Bullock Workman and myself. Born amid the howlings of the tempest and the roar of the avalanche, in inaccessible fastnesses far above the habitations of man or animals, and fed by large tributaries themselves glaciers of tlhe first order, these vast rivers of ice force their way downward through the intervals between precipitous mountains for -reany miles into the deep valleys below, where, succumbing to the heat there encountered, they gradually die out and disappear. The waters into which all of them are finally resolved find their way into that remarkable river, the Indus. These great glaciers are not mere bands of snow and ice running smoothly from their sources to their tongues, but they are most This content downloaded from 139.86.7.217 on Wed, 30 Mar 2016 11:33:34 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 116 THE HISPAR GLACIER. complicated structures descending in steep, broken ice-falls covered with splintered seracs or thrown up into huge undulations, ridges, and high hillocks, seamed by unfathomable crevasses, and bearing on their surface or within their substance an incredible amount of debris from the decaying mountains, whose crests they fringe with fluted snow-ruffles and whose flanks they rasp away and sculpture out in their downward progress. From the similarity of their environing conditions these glaciers have many features in common, but each has also distinctive features sufficiently marked to render a comparative study of them all of en- grossing interest. We are considering this evening the Hispar glacier, the most northerly of the group. The tongue of this glacier is first encountered 2'1 kilometres (1'5 mile) east of Hispar village, at an altitude of ablout 3354 metres (11,000 feet). It is a broad, debris-covered, discoloured mass of ice, with irregular surface sloping down to the detritus-strewn valley- bed where it ends. A large torrent, issuing from an ice-cave on its southern side, has cut a passage for itself through the rock-debris to the valley below. This is joined at the extremity of the tongue by a smaller stream descending in a sulcus between the north side of the tongue and the ragged edge of a large alluvial fan radiating from a gorge in the mountains opposite. From here the glacier ascends with a gentle gradient in a direction somewhat south of east for 59 kilometres (36 63 miles),~ to the highest point of the Hispar pass lying at an altitude of 5335 metres (17,500 feet), where it meets the upper extremity of the Biafo glacier. Its average width above the tongue is about 3 kilometres, 1'95 mile. In the lowest 25 kilometres (15'53 miles) of its course it receives on its south, or orographical left side, six branches, three of them large, the highest being the Haigatum; but from here to its culmination in the Hispar pass no branch enters it on that side. On the north side, nine branches, six of which are large, enter it at various points along its course. Most of these branches, but particularly the northern ones, are laden to an unusual degree with debris, the effect of which is manifested on the main trunk. The mountains enclosing the Hispar, especially its upper half, as well as its branches, are high, greatly broken, very steep, and heavily covered with ice and snow. Their crests and summits are largely crowned with huge, overhanging cornices, many of them of great thickness and stratified ill numerous layers. These, when they break * Drs. Calciati and Koncza consider the length of the Hispar glacier to be 56'6 kilometres, which, as measured on their map, corresponds to the point where their route-line ends. By repeated altitude observations while crossing it, I found the highest part, or summit, of the Hispar pass to be 2-4 kilometres beyond or east of this point, viz. at 59 kilometres.--W. H. W. This content downloaded from 139.86.7.217 on Wed, 30 Mar 2016 11:33:34 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 117 THE HISPAR GLACIER. away, give rise to avalanches of immense size, on account of which it is dangerous to approach the bases of the mountains, where avalanche- beds cover the edge of the glacier. The southern barrier of the Hispar extends from the Haigatum glacier to the summit of the Hispar pass, a distance of 34 kilometres (21'1 miles), without a break. It consists of a high, continuous wall, rising at intervals into sharp peaks, the whole covered with snow, masses of ice, glaciers, and hanging glaciers, and surmounted by cornices, which frequently break loose and shower down avalanches on the glacier below. These avalanches score and chisel out its icy flanks into deep furrows, sharp ridges, battlements, and spires, which, combined with the frozen cataracts and flutings of the hanging glaciers, present a most weird and bizarre effect in the changing shadows which chase one another across the face of the wall, as the sun marks the hours in its westerly course. In our six expeditions in Himalaya, we have seen no ice-expanse that approaches it in extent, complexity, and grandeur. On account of the size and frequency of the avalanches falling from it, its base cannot, at any point, be approached with safety.* For a distance of 24 kilometres (14'9 miles) above the tongue, the whole of the Hispar surface is broken into ice-hillocks separated by deep depressions and heavily coated with debris of every size from mud and sand to granite blocks 6 to 15 metres (20 to 50 feet) in diameter. Many of the hillocks have the form of symmetrical cones and pyramids, but many more have a perpendicular ice-wall on the one side and on the other slant back to the glacier at an angle of 45? or less. This forma- tion is more pronounced and extends up the glacier to a greater distance than the similar formation on the Chogo Lungma, which has a length of 14'5 kilometres (9 miles), or that on the Biafo, which only reaches to a point about 5 kilometres (3'1 miles) above the end of the tongue. A short distance below the entrance of the Haigatum branch a narrow band of smooth, white ice appears among the debris-covered hillocks, which stretches upward, becoming ever broader, till it merges in the white ice pressing down along the left or southern side of the glacier.
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