Page:The journal of the Royal Geographic Society of London. Volume 34, 1864. (IA s572id13663720).pdf/244

40 attained, and so we made for its base, across the moraines and ridges of ice. The foot of the ascent reached, we found good footing for about 1000 feet, and then came some steep rock; after this another slope was gained. When we reached the ridge of the spur, Masherbrum came into view. Eagerly I had looked, whenever we stopped to take breath, along the line of snowy mountains to the north in search of the Great Peak; and now, fixing the position on the plane-table, I showed those with me the mountain behind which lay the peak I had toiled up so far to see. Following up the ridge, another 1000 feet of elevation was gained, when a distant bit of rock and snow could be seen just peering above the nearer snow-line. After another sharp push up to a point where it was impossible to mount further, there no longer remained a doubt about it. There, with not a particle of cloud to hide it, stood the great Peak K 2 on the watershed of Asia!—the worthy culminating point of a range whence those waters have their sources which drain such vast regions. The elevation of Peak K 2, as determined by Capt. T. G. Montgomerie,, is 28,265 feet.

A direct line of glacier stretched away for some 14 miles in the direction of the fine cone of snow, K 3, and, at its base, branched to the right and left towards the Peaks K 1 and K 2. From where we stood the moraines appeared like mere threads—some could be followed up to their sources, growing finer and finer till they disappeared. Every ravine sent forth its stream of rocks, and these, though they joined one another, never commingled; then came sweeping down the expanse of ice, which was never less than 2 miles broad, in beautiful curves, and some fifteen distinct lines of different colours could be counted. Along the centre of this glacier a white line extended, consisting of huge masses of ice in detached blocks, some long and ridged, others pointed, but all in a perfectly continuous line, and which gave the idea that they had been forced up. Further down the glacier they gradually disappeared, the last mass being about a quarter of a mile from its nearest neighbour, but still in the same space, between and adjacent to the same lines of moraine. I had never before seen this feature on a glacier, nor since; nor have I read of anything like it in any of the descriptions which have been given of glacier phenomena.

Looking down on the vast mass of débris which lay below us, a few large tarns of emerald water occurred at intervals. Directly facing, and across the breadth of ice, were large tributaries from the direction of the Mustakh, having steep slopes, and consequently fissured, and broken up into huge blocks and needles of ice. Over the depression to the east of the Peak of Masherbrum, and which terminates the Atoser Glacier of the Hŭshè Valley, in Kapaloo, might be seen a few peaks on that river. Whilst the guides under