Abstract
During a botanical expedition recently made to Gangotri Glacier I noticed, early on the morning of October 6, some very beautiful and curious formations of ice, which must have been formed during the previous night. It was freezing hard when I left my camp, after an early breakfast. The small pools beside the river were completely frozen over, and the smooth boulders of granite were coated with thick flakes of ice, which greatly increased the difficulty and danger of walking. Ascending a steep grassy slope (a favourite feeding-ground at this time of the year for barhal, or Himalayan sheep), I found the ground clothed over with small masses of pure white ice, very like mushrooms at a distance; I cannot give a better description of their general character than to liken them to a certain kind of thin, wafer-like cylindrical biscuit, which is sometimes eaten as an accompaniment of ices, only they were pure white and not cylindrical, but rather funnel-shaped, the larger opening being uppermost. In most cases there were two to four of these funnels, forming clusters round the lower portion of the stems of a species of Polygonum, which was abundant in this part of the valley, in an extremely dried-up condition. I should be glad to know if this curious kind of ice structure has been observed elsewhere.
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DUTHIE, J. Curious Formations of Ice. Nature 25, 78 (1881). https://doi.org/10.1038/025078b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/025078b0
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