Abstract
THE death, on December 2, of Lieut.—Col. Henry Haversham Godwin-Austen in his ninetieth year removes the last of the great pioneers in the geography of the Himalaya and a leading authority on Indian Mollusca. Col. Godwin-Austen was born at Teign-mouth, July 6, 1834. He was a fellow-student with Lord Roberts at Sandhurst, whence they both went to India at the end of 1851. Godwin-Austen saw service the next year in the second Burmese War. His scientific tastes, which were hereditary-for his father, R. A. C. Godwin-Austen, was a geologist who has left an enduring reputation owing to his exceptional insight-led him in 1857 to join the Indian Survey Department. It was his privilege to survey northern Kashmir, where he discovered the Baltoro, Hispar, and Biafra Glaciers-the greatest group of valley glaciers in the world. They were afterwards traversed and mapped by Sir Martin Conway, who named the tributary glacier to the Baltoro from K2 the Godwin-Austen glacier. The glaciers were described by Godwin-Austen in a short paper in the Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society (vol. viii., 1864), the discussion on which is remarkable for Falconer's advocacy of the pre-glacial age of the Alpine lake basins and their preservation by the protective action of glaciers. During this survey Godwin-Austen fixed the position and heights of many of the giant peaks of the Kara-korums, including K2, which had been previously discovered by Montgomerie. It is often known as Mt. Godwin-Austen, and according to the heights adopted by the Indian Survey Department is the second highest mountain in the world.
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Lieut.—Col. H. H. Godwin-Austen, F.R.S. Nature 112, 946 (1923). https://doi.org/10.1038/112946a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/112946a0