CHAPTER XXXVI.
GENERAL MAP OF TIBET. KWEN-LUN BORDER-RANGES.
In the preceding chapters I have attempted to bring together the statements and descriptions of other travellers which can serve to throw light upon the structure of the interior of Tibet and in general elucidate the nature of its physical geography. Lower down I shall endeavour in succinct terms to give a sketch of its general relief in so far as that can be constructed from the observations and experiences of myself and other travellers. But before proceeding to do that I will, according to my promise, try in some measure to explain the orographical structure of those parts of Tibet which I know from my own experience, backed up by the accounts of my predecessors.
I had imagined that this reconstruction of the existing materials would not be a particularly difficult task, and that the red lines which mark the journeys of the different travellers on a general map of Tibet would be sufficient to permit of the various mountain-ranges being traced and located with a very fair degree of certainty. We have to conceive of Tibet as being, like the Iranian highlands, a gigantic »Faltengebirge», or a great number of mountain-ranges running on the whole parallel to one another and crowning a vast upswelling of the earth's crust. We have also to imagine these ranges, at all events the biggest of them, as forming continuous crests of varying height, and rising here and there into vast swellings capped with perpetual snow and glaciers, with in other places lower connecting saddles, which afford more or less convenient passes. Between these principal ranges there exist others of secondary rank, they too invariably parallel and stretching from east to west, though there are minor deviations in certain localities and in the northwestern curve that characterises western Tibet. Certain attempts have, it is true, been made in the light of our existing knowledge to frame a map of the mountain systems of Tibet and the directions of their strikes, as, for example, by Dr. G. Wegener and by F. Grenard. The former, making use of all the material available in 1891, constructed a map, »Uebersicht des Kwen-lun Gebirges», which, considering the time it was made, was very meritorious; it must be remembered that most of the more important journeys across high Tibet belong to a later date than the year named. With regard to the situation and direction of the ranges Wegener
Hedin, Tourney in Central Asia. 1V. 68
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