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
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454 EXPLORERS' JOURNEYS IN HIGH TIBET.
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part covered with detritus. Between them stretch the relatively level high plains or latitudinal valleys through which flow the head-streams of the Jang-tse-kiang.
The climatic characteristics which Prschevalskij notes agree also fairly well with the climate of the Tibetan plateau in general. It is particularly interesting to learn that real sand-storms and dust-storms are characteristic of the extreme east of Tibet. They are at all events far more general there than in the interior of the highlands ; unless, as I have already hinted, it was due simply to the season of the year in which my journeys fell that I seldom or never experienced similar storms. Storms do occur indeed at all seasons of the year; but it is extremely seldom that they are charged with any appreciable quantities of dust or sand. The ground is for the most part so moist that even the very strongest wind is powerless to effect any transportation of it. It is to the transporting power of the water that I for the most part attribute the filling up of the self-contained drainage basins.
Leaving out of account the magnificent scientific collections which he brought home with him, Prschevalskij's chief importance lies in the fact that his journeys were pioneer efforts, by means of which he inaugurated a new era in Central Asian exploration. But in points of detail his geographical discoveries need, almost throughout, the most thorough revision. Rockhill says truly, »In the light of more recent investigations we are able to correct a number of errors into which this traveller fell.»
Simultaneously with my journey of 1891 and 1892 W. W. Rockhill was also able to shed fresh light upon the regions west of the great road by which the Mongol pilgrims travel to Lhasa, regions of which we had only the very slightest knowledge through the famous journey of Huc and Gabet and later through that of Prschevalskij. In point both of fulness and of topographical drawing, the map which Rockhill published after his journey is superior to most others dealing with Tibet.
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