the bearings. At that same point the range appears to project towards the north, for both east and west of the peak D it recedes farther to the south. Immediately north of that peak the ground is plentifully strewn with pieces of black tuff. In the neighbourhood of Camp XVII (5o73 m.) there were any number of yaks and orongo antelopes.
During the course of our march on 2nd September we crossed over Prince Henri d'Orléans and Bonvalot's route (1889-90) in the vicinity of the little lake No. XII. They travelled west of a detached, snow-covered, round-topped mountain (E), and there was no difficulty in fixing the point of intersection of our route with theirs owing to some rubbish that we found and the droppings of their camels. Moreover one of my men had also accompanied them, and he recognised the place again. The altitude of lake No. XIV was 5078 m. It is entered by several brooks and spring-fed streams, but the level of the lake would appear to be fairly constant, and as its water was perfectly fresh, it probably at a certain level possesses an invisible outlet. Its shores were boggy and treacherous; although generally speaking the surface in this part of northern Tibet , is often strewn with gravel, and consequently hard. This is true however of the slopes only, for as a rule the surface down below is soft, and consists of the finest dust. The occurrence generally of fragments of tuff is characteristic, and often the pieces are rounded and polished, like cannon-balls. They are of course fragments from such tuff layers as those which we so frequently saw capping the isolated sandstone mountains.
From lake No. XIV a broad valley, without any distinct watercourse, slopes down towards the east, to lake No. XV. In that valley there are however marshes and springs, which possibly owe their origin to the former of these two lakes. From Camp. XIX (alt. 4985 m.) we saw to the S. 54° E. a big massive snowy mountain, belonging to the main range on the south which I called King Oscar's Mount. It was indeed covered with snow two-thirds of the way down from the top; on its northern face the snow-line ran then at about 5 300 m., and its absolute snow-line is no doubt somewhat higher.
IIIF Color HighRes
