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National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| Scientific Results of a Journey in Central Asia, 1899-1902 : vol.4 |
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Citation Information
94
WESTWARDS TO LADAN.
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they raced along, especially across the mountainous regions on the south side of the lake, first whirling up the dust on the narrow flats beside the shore and then scattering over them, and more particularly over the mountains, a sprinkling of snow. By that the waves had subsided, though they were followed by a long, gentle swell. The following were the bearings of the features nearest to the little island : in the S. 26° W. and S. 55° W. appeared the ends of a small hammer-like ridge, forming a broad peninsula connected by a narrow neck of land with low ground behind, while a bay penetrates both east and west of it. The former of these bays is bounded on the east by a second peninsula, with three parallel ridges running down it, and of these three the most distant one, which bore from the S. 45° E. to the S. 68° E., appeared to fall pretty steeply into the lake. To the N. 75° E. lay the northern promontory of the large island and to the N. 73° E. the pier-like promontory on the mainland to the north. The peninsula to which this promontory belongs is very like that which I have just mentioned as existing on the southern shore, and like it is studded with three parallel ranges. Of the three, the innermost one, that is the one farthest north, terminates on the west in a rocky cape, which bore N. 3° W. On the southern shore of the lake we were able to distinguish generally four different ranges, each rising successively higher as they lay more remote from the lake, and the last one of all capped with snow.
Upon leaving the island we paddled towards the S. 66° W., steering for one of the rocky headlands on the south. At the same time we also left behind us the hammer-like peninsula and its round western bay, and beyond it we soon perceived the forks of two fresh, and somewhat more important, ranges. The outline of the northern shore was more difficult to make out; it appeared however to run more evenly, and not to be broken by rocky headlands or bays. Along this stretch of our journey, that is diagonally across the greatest basin of the lake, though nearer to the southern shore than to the northern, I was, in consequence of a fresh tempest which nearly cost us our lives, only able to take five soundings in all, namely the first immediately west-south-west of the little island 37.90 m., then 47.30, 47.85, and 45.00 Ill., and finally, close to the wild and picturesque southern rocky shore, 24.30 m. The maximum of these soundings, 47.85 m., is one of the very deepest which I have obtained in any of the Tibetan lakes; but it is very possible that the Tschargut-tso goes down to even greater depths on the north of the line that we steered. Thus the second little rocky island also rises from a considerable depth. Even at the very first glance, one would almost venture to say, that the lake must he relatively deep. Its basin lies, it is true, in a latitudinal valley, like so many of the lakes which we encountered in Central Tibet; but, while these lie in broad, flat valleys, and consequently must be shallow, as was, for instance, the big salt lake which we came across on the journey of the year preceding, the latitudinal valley of the Tschargut-tso is narrower, and is inclosed between steep mountain-ranges which advance right to the water's edge.
While the cliffs in this part of the lake dropped, so far as I was able to see, for the most part sheer into the water, the shore at Camp LXXXVII swept a long
way inland, and was backed by relatively low ground: it was in fact a gravel scree which there touched the water's edge, and it was in part overgrown with
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