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0087 Scientific Results of a Journey in Central Asia, 1899-1902 : vol.1
Scientific Results of a Journey in Central Asia, 1899-1902 : vol.1 / Page 87 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

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[Figure] Fig. 55. More, October 8.

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doi: 10.20676/00000216
Citation Format: Chicago | APA | Harvard | IEEE

OCR Text

 

FROM KURUK-ASTI TO THE CONFLUENCE OF THE KODAJ-DARJA.   47

came to was crowned by a gunabes, standing in the midst of a number of graves (guristan), each provided with a tombstone of clay, resembling in shape a brick or a cigar-box. There is an abundance of poplars in the locality, and the drift-sand has in places heaped itself up into dunes. From one of the summits we obtained a good general view of the surrounding country. Due south rose the main peak of the Tschoka-tagh, with the Saj-tagh in the foreground. Next to us on the east was a dense poplar forest, its foliage now turned yellow. To the south-south-east and the south-east was .a patch of the high barren sand, an outlier of the Takla-makan. The principal summit of the Tusluk-tagh lay S. 4o° W. North-westwards extended the steppe, dotted over with patches of dark green forest-trees and clumps of fiery yellow bushes; this region is called Bisch-kotan. Immediately to the north the Saj-tagh terminates in a little eminence not more than 5o m. high. Beyond it in the far distance was Sultan Kara Sakai Attam, with its five culminating peaks. The river serpentines through the country like a broad conspicuous ribbon, its long leech-shaped sedimentary deposits now gradually emerging to light as the water dropped. On the little protuberance of the Saj-tagh, on which we stood, there were yet two other graves, covered, not by the usual dome, but by an arrangement of beams and stones. Both were open at their northern end, and thus showed the heads of the skeletons, which had been laid north-and-south. In one of the graves there were two skeletons. Neither grave appeared to be very old.

On the other side of the mountain the steppe predominates, until it is succeeded by fine young forest. Here the river describes longer windings, and its bed is deeply trenched, the banks being II/2 m. high, while the alluvial deposits are insignificant. On the right we passed a Kona-darja, an arm which had run closer in under the Saj-tagh than the present channel does. Deer were common in this locality.

Fig. 55. Right. 0.30

3o

2I

0.79 = depth. Left. 53 . velocity.

0.16   I.os   I41   I.o8

20   58   87   78

15   50   79   68

Breadth = 67.3 m. More, October 8. Scale r : 500.

At More the river was 67.3 m. broad, and had a mean depth of 0.656 m., a mean velocity of 0.5913 in., and a volume of 26.10 cub. m., in the second.

October 9th. In the course of I2 hours the level dropped 2 cm. The transparency was 29.7 cm. At Bala-dung on the right bank the forest is quite luxuriant. A little below that point the river divides into two branches, of which the left one alone contained water. At one of the sharp bends, where the current was making havoc of the bank, some of the outermost poplars had fallen and lay upon the surface, where their branches arrested and held fast the driftwood, and other flotsam and jetsam, that came floating down-stream. In another place, where the river was only 3o m. wide, a prostrate poplar stretched half-way across it, and on the other side of the tree the depth increased to 8 m., while the banks were I to

I   m. high. At Öschkä-öldi a branch strikes off from the right and proceeds to