FROM THE KONTSCHE-DARJA TO THE FOOT OF THE KURUK-TAGH. 9
is much less in the case of the Kontsche-darja than in the case of the Tarim. At any rate the amount of water in the Kontsche-darja was unexpectedly small, when one considers that the river at Korla carries constantly, winter and summer alike, a volume of 72 cub.m. per second, and that, as the natives asserted, most of the canals were not as yet opened. The ice covering too appeared to show that no drain had been made upon the river recently for irrigating the spring-seed, for it was level and smooth, and not saucer-shaped, as it would have been, had the volume
Fig. 7. MEASURING THE KONTSCHE-DARJA THROUGH HOLES IN THE ICE.
begun to diminish in the way I found it in March 1896. The volume appeared in fact to be about the same that it was in the beginning of winter, when the river began to freeze. Indeed I was assured that the level at Dilpar was at its highest, and that, as soon as the canals were opened, as they would be shortly, it would drop very appreciably. All the same the volume of 32.70 cub.m. -does agree sufficiently well with the measurements (vol. I chapter XXX) of the Kontsche-darja already made, namely 19 cub.m. for all the arms that empty into the Kuntschekisch-tarim, and 13.22 cub.m. for the Bos-ilek, which empties into the Avullu-köl, or a total of 33.22 cub.m. in all. Thus along this fairly long stretch the river would appear to have lost less than one cub.m. of water. Hence it is all the stranger to find that in the interval between Korla and Dilpar, which is very little shorter, the river should lose more than one-half of its entire volume. This is probably in no small degree due to
fledin, Journey in Central Asia. Z!. 2
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