Jempen, while Ju-jing-pen, which I visited in 1896, may be another similar station, situated on the Kuruk-darja farther to the south-west. But since I have now had all my astronomical determinations of locality calculated by Dr. K. G. Olsson, I am in the position to deny categorically the correctness of the map which Kosloff prints in his pamphlet Lop-nor. Ju-jing-pen, Jing-pen, and Jimpen are one and the same place. In my map which Dr. B. Hassenstein constructed for Peterranns Mitteilungen this place is put at 40° 53' 3o" N. lat. and 87° 43' 3o" E. long. According to Olsson's calculation of my astronomical observation • its position is 40° 57' 14" and 87° 49' 6" This on Hassenstein's map Ju-jing-pen ought to be shifted exactly ten km. towards the north-east, and Turfan-karaul on the Kontsche-darja ought to accompany it, being moved about half the distance in the same direction. The fact that Dr. Hassen-stein, notwithstanding that I was only able to supply him with a few astronomical points, nevertheless hit the actual position so closely — merely with the help of my itinerary and the incomplete information he already possessed regarding that region — speaks volumes not only for his acuteness and accuracy, but also for the reliability of my measured itinerary. But he has been misled, as I was, by Kosloff's map, and has entered Kosloff's route which is twice as long as mine, and consequently he thought as I did, that there might possibly be two Chinese stations on the Kuruk-darja. In the atlas of 8o large sheets on the scale of i : 200,000 which Dr. Hassenstein constructed of my former journey,* and which form the basis of the maps on the scale of I: i,000,000 published in P. eterranns Mitteilungen, Ergänzhft 131, the region in question is shown on sheet VII. 12. On it the distance in a straight line between Jing-pen and Turfan-karaul is 28 km.; but since the reconstruction has been controlled by degree-lines and corrected, the same distance has shrunk to 20 km. According to the data I gathered during my last journey, it ought, as also appears from Pl. 4o, to be 25V2 km. How Kosloff managed to get this distance to work out at exactly 4o km. is difficult to understand
Finally in the light of my profiles of the Kuruk-tagh, given at the beginning of this volume, and of Dr. Ekholm's calculation of my hypsometrical observations, I will add a few words with regard to the hypsometrical relations of the eastern parts of the Kuruk-tagh which I have visited. The mean altitude of the 43 stations at which I took observations amounts to 1080.5 m. In this calculation I have however included all my measurements, passes and depressions as well, as also those taken on the gravelly scree that slopes down towards the lowlands of Lop. If all these are deducted, the mean altitude of the plateau upon which the eastern Kuruk-tagh stands is 1171 m. If we take the mean altitude of the Desert of Lop to be 82o m., then the difference of altitude amounts to 371 m., or very little more than the altitude of the Eiffel tower at Paris! The extreme northern terraced step of the Tibetan plateau, if we disregard the mountain-chains that are built up upon it, has a mean elevation ten times that of the Kuruk-tagh plateau.
The two highest passes that I climbed over in the Kuruk-tagh had altitudes of 1658 m. and 1535 m. respectively. Thus the altitude, 1953 m., at Tatlik-bulak, at the very threshold of the Tibetan mountains, is almost exactly 300 m. higher than
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