IIIF Color HighRes
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
WESTWARDS TO LADAK.
288
conductors had put up their black tent close to the nearest mountain wall, and in a circle round the tent they had packed up the sheep's loads, namely several hundred double sacks of corn, the usual caravan commodity. On the journey out to Ladak the sheep are generally laden with salt. Thus it is a barter trade that the Tibetans carry on in this region.
At Camp CXLI we saw on the nearest slope an extraordinarily distinct terrace. The rocks this day consisted of different varieties of grey granite and schist, though in the vicinity of our camp it was black and greatly compressed. It was in the last-named rock that the terrace was sculptured in the way shown in the accompanying illustration (fig. 179), and it was so regular that one might have been tempted to take it for a road, made at a time when the lake stood at a higher level than it does now, a view that is however altogether precluded by one fact alone, namely on the opposite southern shore there is an exactly corresponding terrace.
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Fig. 193. VERTICAL SECTION OF THE TERRACE AT CAMP CXLI. THE FIGURES INDICATE THE DISTANCES IN METERS BETWEEN THE STATIONS.
I took a levelling of the lake-side, starting from the water's edge; the horizontal limb of my levelling tube was exactly i 1/2 m. above the ground. On the water-line itself there was a little transverse terrace, with a strip of shore behind it, 75 m. broad, reaching up to the base of a rocky wall 3 m. higher. This strip of shore is covered with tangled kamisch, which had been severely grazed. The rampart, which farther west is double, consists of sand and gravel, is very hard, and at the point where my levelling-line intersected it, its top was 41/2 m. above the surface of the water. Its ridge is of course uneven, being more eaten away in some places than in others. On the inside of this rampart there is a depression about 40 m. broad and covered with sediment ; there the rainwater appears to gather every now and again, and a few solitary bushes were growing. Behind that comes a smaller gravelly scree, and beyond that again the steep flank of the mountain. The terrace, the only one visible in that locality, reaches an altitude of 19.5 m. above the level of the lake.
On 3rd December, we accomplished only a very short stage along the northern shore of the lake, for we soon encountered a broad rocky headland, which the Tibetans declared that the camels could not possibly get over. The weather was at length calm, indeed the wind was perfectly quiescent; accordingly I seized the opportunity to take some soundings in this part of the Tso-ngombo. This mission I entrusted to one of the Cossacks, and he rowed from the camp towards the S. 69° W., making for the extremity of a peninsula which juts out from the northern shore ; there I agreed to meet him, while the caravan continued its journey westwards.
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