ACROSS THE JARDANG DESERT TO ALTMISCH-BULAK. 73
After crossing over this deeply trenched ravine, we travelled hour after hour towards the north-north-east, across an expanse of detritus, in part undulating, in part level, absolutely barren and waterless, and ribbed by hundreds of tiny ridges or )corrugations» of solid rock, one or two decimeters high. It was in this dreary stony desert that we made Camp No. XIII, having travelled 38 km. towards the N. 26° E.
On the 23rd March we continued our journey towards the east-north-east, along the southern foot of a small, unimportant chain. Towards the south-east the surface sloped away without a break towards the clay desert, which was here not screened by any mountains. North, north-west, and west there were only insignificant ridges, and all at a great distance. I had imagined the Kuruk-tagh to be, at the least, a distinctly marked, sharply defined mountain-range, and instead of that found that it consisted here merely of the last severely disintegrated fragments of such. Somewhat farther on we caught glimpses of a rather higher range, though it was of no great altitude. The ground was gravelly and barren; it was very seldom we perceived any scrub, such as köuruk or tschakende. The strata cropped out like edgings on a level with the surface, with very shallow hollows lying between them, imparting to the landscape the aspect of miniature waves. The wind now blew at the rate of II m in the second, and the atmosphere was thick; it was quite easy to understand why the gravel lay loose, without any binding material: all the fine matter is blown away by the perpetual winds as fast as it is produced.
IIIFカラー高解像度
