THE LOP-NOR REGION ON TI-IE WU-TSCHANG-FU MAP. 297
The foregoing investigation will also show the untenability of Kosloff's statement: »Since the Lop-nor lies, according to the description quoted (from the Si yüschuei-tao-ki) and according to the (Wu-tschang) map, at the northern foot of the mountain Nutsitu, the Kara-koschun-kul is therefore as an actual fact nothing more nor less than the historical Lop-nor, as indeed Prschevalskij recognised.»
Not only is this conclusion illogical, but, when compared with the text and the map, it is inaccurate. For, taking the map first, what it shows as lying at the northern foot of the Nutsitu is not the Lop-nor, but the series of lakes Urghu-khoitu, Tarim-nor, Bagha-ghaschon, and Ike-ghaschon or Tömen-ghaschon, corresponding to the Kara-koschun, the lake which Prschevalskij, through an easily explicable mistake, identified with the Lop-nor. Then as regards the text, when describing the northern route, it tells us that the Ike-ghaschon lies south of the Lop-nor and the Baghaghaschon south (i. e. south-west) of the Ike-ghaschon. With regard to the Karakoschun, we have proved by means of the local traditions, that it was formed about the year 1740, at a time when the historical Lop-nor had long disappeared. Prschevalskij did not therefore discover the historical Lop-nor, but the newer creation, the Kara-koschun; though this does not in the slightest degree diminish the value of the discovery he did make, or at all dim the lustre of the fame which will make his name immortal in the history of Asiatic exploration and travel. It may be regarded as a fortunate circumstance, that he himself clung so tenaciously to the conviction that he had discovered the Lop-nor, for otherwise this discussion would never have taken place, nor would the problem be now solved, and definitively settled and done with.
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