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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| 514 | EXPLORERS' JOURNEYS IN HIGH TIBET. | |||
| bitter, but, owing to the intense cold, it freezes readily, and at the time the explorer saw it, it was one continuous sheet of ice.» It is surprising to find the Pundit speaking of the water as salt, especially as, as stated above, Grenard says it is quite fresh. The mention of the existence in it of fish and molluscs proves that it must as a fact be fresh; nor is it conceivable that such an extensive lake would become frost-bound as early as November unless it were as a fact salt. The cause of the water's being fresh is a problem which future investigation must solve, because in a self-contained basin such as that salt water is the very thing that one would expect to find. The Tengri-nor is too little known to allow of guesses being made. About the small lake of Bul Cho, six miles long by five miles broad, the Pundit gives the following information: »A kind of borax is found beside the lake and in it: it is called »Bul», and hence the name. This borax is used by the inhabitants of Lhasa and Shigatze as a spice for meat, for tea, and for washing clothes, bathing, etc. It is carried away by the traders in great quantities.»* In Captain Bower's journey we find nothing that throws any specially important light upon the physical geography of Tibet. His journey, which started at Simla on 4th April 1891 and lasted close upon eight months, led him right across unknown Tibet and through Asia to the coast. As a record of rapid travelling it is a good performance, and his map is in some respects always useful for fixing positions on the high plateau. At first he travelled through those parts of western Tibet which have since been examined much more accurately by Wellby, Deasy, and Rawling. He brushed the western end of the Panggong-tso and to a photograph of the lake affixes the legend, »frozen over in April», in itself a surprising statement. As early as July he notes incessant westerly winds, not seldom bringing with them rain, hail, and snow. In general his description leaves the impression, that on the high plateau the summer is by no means deficient in rain; however it happened not seldom, that they had difficulty in finding drinking water. Unfortunately the information given about the lakes is extremely scanty; e. Ä. on 6th April at Papuk: »After leaving the small lake lying to the north of our last camp, we approached the Mangtza Cho Lake, and camped to the south of it. It is a fine sheet of water, of a deep indigo-blue, at an elevation of 16,540 feet. Round the lake there is an incrustation of salt, and people from Ladakh and Noll come for it in summer.» Again on the loth July: »Over a pass 17,876 feet, and then down a long narrow valley which suddenly debouches on Lake Aru Cho (17,150 feet), — a fine sheet of water running north and south, salt like nearly all the Tibetan lakes, and of a deep blue colour ... Heading round the north edge of Lake Aru Cho, we crossed a neck of land with another lake, or rather the nearly dried-up remnants of a lake, interspersed with patches of salt on our north.» The high salinity of the ground is borne witness to in this note made at Camp 16 on the 24th July: — »On the road a number of pools, all more or less salt, were passed, but where we camped there was a spring of fresh water. All *. Montgomerie, Narrative of an Exploration of the Namcho, or Tengri nur Lake in Great Tibet, made by a Native Explorer, during 1871-2, in Journal of Royal Geographical Society, vol. XLV (1875). | |||||
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