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National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Scientific Results of a Journey in Central Asia, 1899-1902 : vol.4 |
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Citation Information
THE SELLING-TSO AND THE JAGJU-RAPGA.
31
bottom, portions which have been shaped and left in relief by the currents set up in the lake by the discharging river. And as the lake level drops so do these upstanding portions of the former lake bottom become increasingly visible. Beside these alluvial islands the depth amounted to 2 to 3 m., and thus here, in the very throat of the river, it was somewhat greater than in those parts of the lake which lie just outside of it. Immediately below the gravelly island the water was slightly saline, owing to the intermingling of the river water and the lake water. Yet throughout the whole of the large bay into which the river empties the salinity is considerably less than it is for instance beside the broad peninsula or in the southern part of the Selling-tso, where no river enters the lake. In this bay we also found enormous quantities of a small Crustacean, which Prof. Leche has identified as Daj5hnioj5sis fibelana. Farther out in the lake we did not observe this little creature;
there the water is no doubt too salt for it.
The presence of vast flocks of gulls as well as of wild-duck all over the estuary region suggested that the river also contained fish ; and indeed there was a great quantity of fish just above our camp. Unfortunately the specimens that I took to bring home with
me got lost; but they could only be species of either Nemachilus or Schizofthygoftsis, for these
are the species we found in several other parts of Central Tibet living under precisely
similar conditions. One kilometer above the
camp the river breaks twice into cataracts, and
it was at the foot of these that the fish were
disporting themselves. We caught a large supply by means of nets; they had an excellent flavour. Curiously enough the Tibetans have as great an abhorrence of fish as they have of snakes and lizards.
The point where the cataracts occur is of great interest. The river forms there a double bend in the form of an S, and its bed is deep and narrow, especially below the rapids, of which the upper one was nearly i m. high and the lower one only o,3 m. The bright water pours in a solid mass over two thresholds or sills formed of firmly cemented gravel-and-shingle and of argillaceous mud. Opposite the lower the right bank of the river is about 3 m. high, while the left bank slopes gradually up to the general level of the adjacent country. The thresholds are deeply cut down below the surface, so that it is impossible to detect whether they are continued on the land sides. But by following up the left bank of the river, we found in the lower part of the valley of the Jagju-rapga, and on the east side of a swelling buttress that juts out from a mountain-range there is there, no less than seven distinctly marked old beach-lines or ramparts, consisting of gravel. They are all parallel to one another, and turn their concave sides towards the great bay of the Selling-tso, into which the river empties itself. From the lowest of these ramparts the shore slopes gently and regularly down towards the lake, without showing the slightest indication of either rampart or terrace. Yet we might reasonably regard the two
Ljirrshotd
Fig. 23.
threshold
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