KOSLOFF ON THE WESTERN KURUK-TAGH. 9r
seen to the west when on the Kum-darja excursion, we reached this old river-bed again on the third day from Kisil-sinir».*
Upon reaching Jing-pen Kosloff completed his several crossings over the Kuruktagh, in the course of which he did so much to unravel the orographical relations of the western part of its system. His account is open to various minor objections, especially on the score of want of clearness in the terminology he employs to describe morphological relations and the features of the physical geography. The dimensions of the different mountainous regions are not sharply differentiated the one from the other. The words »desert», ', plain», and »plateau» are not kept separate, and are often employed without discrimination for one and the same locality. It is also difficult to understand in what way the mountainous country between the basins of Turfan and Lop-nor came to have anything to do with the changes which have taken place in the network of streams that furnished the Lop-nor with water. There is no need to take any such rivers into account at all, for the rivers which fed Lop-nor have their origin in a totally different quarter of Central Asia, and flow through the basin of the Tarim. The historical lake of Lop-nor has never received any influx from the north, except occasionally and for short periods (after heavy rains) through the torrents that course down the detritus slope, particularly the one which proceeds through Altmisch-bulak.
On the whole however Kosloff's description, especially as regards the structure of this mountainous region, is in agreement with Grum-Grschimajlo's. Kosloff also speaks of the two systems, Tschol-tagh and Kuruk-tagh, and in addition of a number of minor ranges lying between them and parallel to them. It is quite clear from his description that he regards the range at Kisil-sinir as the main range of the Kuruk-tagh, an opinion which, although I have not seen the range in question, I venture to share. Kosloff says that the lofty mountain-mass of the Tscharajliktagh, which rises from the flattened summit of the Kuruk-tagh, lies west of Kisil-sinir. It is probably the eastward continuation of this range which Grum-Grschimajlo calls the Tuge-tau_ On the little map that accompanies Kosloff's Lop-nor the main chain of the Kuruk-tagh is also drawn through Kisil-sinir, or immediately south of it, as well as north of Teschik-bulak. Its south-eastward continuation beyond Altmischbulak is on the other hand pure imagination, as we shall see later on. On the other hand Grum-Grschimajlo makes the main crest of the Kuruk-tagh run a pretty considerable distance south of Kisil-sinir, and also south of Teschik-bulak. Had he travelled one day farther to the south, he would have come to a very different conclusion. That Kosloff is right in his interpretation of the facts can be seen on Grum-
Grschimajlo's own map. The »range of Sinbir», which is entered upon it from hearsay to the north of Kisil-sinir, is identical with the main range upon which the
Tscharajlik-tagh is situated; and the Tuge-tau is identical with Kosloff's main range of the Kuruk-tagh. So that in point of actual fact the observations of the two travellers are substantially in agreement. Kosloff's observation, that the northern
4* P. K. Kosloff, Trudij Expeditsij Imp. Russ. Geog. Obschtschestva po Tsentralnoj Asij 1893 —95, vol. rr, pp. 47-73. In the matter of misprints, this volume establishes a record. Five pages of corrections for 296 pages of text is rather over-much. On one page there are no less than nine misprints!
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