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National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Scientific Results of a Journey in Central Asia, 1899-1902 : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
GENERAL CONCLUSIONS REGARDING THE LAKES. 305
For the sake of clearness let me now gather up the principal results to which the above inquiry has brought us.
(I) Between Karaul and Basch-arghan there is a chain of lakes, at least 35 in number.
They are fed by the Tarim through connecting channels.
Consequently they possess fresh water, which becomes slightly brackish when their connection with the river is severed, but is, owing to its stationary condition, as clear as crystal.
Their existence proves that the strip of land along the right bank of the Tarim lies at a lower level than the river.
Each lake occupies an independent depression lying between two elongated dunes.
Each of these depressions is deepest in its south-east part, and has a deep trench along the leeward slope of the dune on its eastern shore.
The western and northern parts of each lake are shallow.
The farther down the river the lakes lie, the greater grows their maximum depth, but the less their mean depth.
As a rule the breadth increases, and the length decreases, the farther the lakes lie down the river. The proportion of length to maximum breadth is 8.0: I in the Basch-köl and 2.8 : I in the Begelik-köl.
(1o) In three lakes that were sufficiently measured, the volume increased the farther the lake lay down the river. This is however an apparent law merely, and is simply due to the lakes selected. If we take the mean depth of the Jangi-köl as equal to that of the Karaunelik-köl, its capacity will be 120 million cubic meters.
(I I) The sides of each lake-basin are cemented by matter partly of fluvial, partly of œolian, origin.
(I 2). Beyond the inner, that is to say the south-south-west, end of each lake there is a bajir or depression exhibiting the same characteristics as the lake-basin itself, except that it contains no water. If there is water, the depression is called daschi, or ,salt-pool).
The size of the connecting channel is proportional to that of the lake. Sometimes there are two, and even three, canals. The length of the canals which feed the lower lakes appears to be greater than the length of those which feed the upper lakes.
All the lakes receive an inflow of water at the periods of high water, unless their canals are dammed by the natives, or the lakes are isolated by a change in the course of the river.
In their topography the lakes reproduce the contours partly of the adjacent sandy desert, partly of the substratum.
The depressions were originally caused by wind-erosion and their situation in the trenches of the substratum, i. e. the everywhere predominant direction of their major axis from north-north-east to south-south-west, was originally caused by the prevalent wind blowing more or less at right angles to the main axis of the dunes.
Several of the lakes are contracted and narrow in the middle, a result attributable to the festoon-arrangement of the dune-chains.
lledin, ,journey in Central Asia. 39
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