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
OVER THE KARA-KORUM AND TIIE SUGET-DAVAN.
413
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inevitably be formed at times, though when they are forced by the pressure of the ice behind out into the middle of the rivulet that leaves the glacier, they are soon worn down and carried away by the water. From our route we were not able to see anything of the fern region from which the ice-streams of the Kitschik-kumdan and the Tschong-kumdan are fed; we could not even see the tops of the glaciers themselves. Yet judging from the size of the glaciers in front, it is fair to infer that the gathering-grounds of the ice must attain pretty large dimensions.
After leaving the Tschong-kumdan behind us, we proceeded to follow the glen towards the north-north-east. Its bottom was in that part everywhere filled with immense sheets of ice, which were formed in the beginning of winter owing to the water freezing in layers and spreading itself out right across the level expanse of the gravelly glen-floor. Had the ice not been covered with a thin and tough coverlet of snow, it would have been impossible to ride across its bright and slippery surface. In some places it was exposed and appeared to be of a beautiful light, blue-green colour. It was like riding up a long, narrow fjord inclosed between cliffs, the relative altitude of which went on constantly decreasing. After that we did not see the glaciers any more; they exist, at any rate on this route only on the southern face of the vast upswelling, on the upper regions of which the greatest quantity of snow accumulates.
At length the slopes on the right of the glen grew so far flat that we were able to leave the bottom, and ride along the top of the terraced escarpment, although it is gapped by a number of contributory watercourses, sunk in deep ravines, in which the snow lay heaped up so abundantly that our horses were sometimes in danger of being buried in it. In the neighbourhood of Japtschan the snow lay two feet thick even on the smooth ice. None of the ice in this glen remains through the summer; very unlike that in the peculiar glaciated glen which we penetrated into between Camp XL and Camp XLI, where even in summer the ice was 2 m. thick on both sides. As however the ice which accumulates in this upper part of the glen of Schejok during the winter melts again in the summer, it is reasonable to suppose that the thaw-water must give rise to a veritable torrent, and as similar ice formations occur also in several of the subsidiary glens belonging to the Schejok system, it becomes easy to imagine how immense must be the quantities of water which during the warm season of the year will flow down the bed of the united streams. The two glaciers are said to form no dammed up lakes at all.
At Japtschan, the altitude of which is 4886 m., the country assumes quite a different character. By this we had climbed up out of the deep and remarkable glen of Schejok and once more found ourselves on the relatively open uplands. In whichever direction we looked we saw nothing but low, red mountains, half covered with snow. We were again on the »roof of the world», and were approaching the stupendous pass which still separated us from East Turkestan. In the neighbourhood of Japtschan there was reported to be a bite or two of grass, but it was at that time all carefully buried under the snow.
April 22nd. In the morning the weather was good, and although the sky was clouded, it was still and the clouds soon dispersed, and after that the sun shone nearly all day, light flosky clouds just veiling it occasionally. The wind blew how-
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