An unusual and very fatal accident has occurred in India.
Lake Nynee, in Kumaon, the only lake in the Himalayas, is one of the beautiful spots of the world, and has become a favourite resort of invalids from the North-West Provinces. The sides of the valley, almost bowl-shaped, rise from the lake, which is not large, and is 6,000 ft. above the sea-level, in terraces, usually 1,200 ft. above the water, and backed by receding moun- tains of extraordinary altitude, often from 5,000 ft. to 8,000 ft. higher than Mont Blanc. On one of the terraces stand a hotel and the assembly-rooms, and other buildings, dominated by a lofty cliff. On the 18th inst., a small landslip swept away the outhouses of the hotel, with some thirty native servants, and the Deputy- Commissioner, with some engineers, officers, and European soldiers, hurried to the spot to render aid. While still at work, the cliff above, loosened by a tremendous fall of rain-25 in. in forty hours—rushed down like an avalanche, sweeping away hotel, assembly-rooms, and all other buildings. Thirty- nine Europeans were killed, of whom some thirteen were commissioned officers and civilians ; and, we presume, a num- ber of natives, though this is not recorded. The accident will probably be fatal to Nynee Tal, as there arc no ledges on the hill-sides not dominated by cliffs, and the disaster has revealed the treacherous nature of the soil. There must be some geological peculiarity in the Himalayas making the soil unusually porous, or the perpetual flow of water from the snow-fields would form lakes, which, however, except at Nynee, scarcely exist.
