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
il
GENERAL MAP OF TIBET. KWEN-LUN BORDER-RANGES.
545
which I crossed over near Camp XLI (I 90 1) by a pass 5,468 in. above sea-level, and this is a range which recurs on other meridional routes. South of that range the configuration again grows less regular: instead of broad latitudinal valleys running between distinct mountain-ranges we have a vast number of less regularly formed mountains, in which, though the east-west direction does indeed prevail, it is nevertheless less sharply accentuated. When we enter on the map those portions of the course of the Satschu-tsangpo that are known, that is to say those parts of it which have been touched by Bonvalot, Rockhill, Bower, de Rhins, Littledale, and myself, we see that that river flows from the east-north-east to the west-southwest, and if its valley is to be ranked as a latitudinal valley, it would seem to prescribe an east-north-east and west-south-west direction to the mountain-ranges. Now this inference is contradicted by Grenard's orographical map; but according to Rockhill's map the upper Satschu-tsangpo does appear to flow in a latitudinal valley.
Finally, in the extreme south of the region which we are considering, we have found that the ranges there exhibit a very distinctly emphasised east-west main direction and parallelism, a direction that is best defined by the arrangement of the hydrographical chain — Selling-tso, Jagju-rapga, Tschargut-tso, Addan-tso, Dagtsetso, and Bogtsang-tsangpo. South of that and throughout the whole of the way to the Panggong-tso we were accompanied by an especially important range, though sometimes low or broken; this appears to form a water-divide between the recently mentioned basins and those that were discovered by Nain Singh. This range exhibits also a striking parallelism with one or two other physico-geographical main features with which we are already familiar, namely with the thalweg of the Tsangpo, which is of course a true latitudinal valley, and with the Himalayan system, which forms the southern margin of the Tibetan swelling. There a more pronounced northwest to south-east direction is assumed by the ranges and their latitudinal valleys, which are connected with the surface folding of the Tibetan highlands; for while in the extreme west the ranges are, as it were, squeezed close together, in the east they diverge more and more from one another.
When in the future Tibet shall have been traversed in all directions, the general maps of the country will unquestionably show some especially imposing and dominating ranges, with regard to which we possess at the present time only the most imperfect knowledge, or which we know only very fragmentarily. One of these is the range which probably forms the westward continuation of the range with the 5468 m. high pass north of Camp XLI (I 9m), ), and which, again probably, makes a connecting link between the Tang-la in the east and the Kara-korum in the west. Another circumstance eloquent of the existence of such a range, which might indeed be regarded as the true backbone of the Tibetan highlands, is, that in the faggot of Tibetan ranges this particular range really does occupy a median position in relation to the Kwen-lun and the Himalaya and all the other mountain-ranges.
In the unknown region of the south, that is to say in the country immediately north of the valley of the Tsangpo, we likewise have reason to suppose the existence of an important mountain-range, one part of which is the Nin-tscheng-tang-la on the southern shore of the Tengri-nor; and the same important range we find again also in the west, namely in the Alung-gangri swelling. These two sections would, it is
Hedin, Tourney in Central Asia. IV. 69
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