a system of crests of uniform height, amongst which it is difficult to determine which is the main crest. One characteristic feature of the system throughout is however this, that it actually does consist of various parallel chains and nowhere constitutes a single range, with spurs breaking obliquely away from it after the fashion shown on the map of the Russian General Staff.
When you look at a provisional general map on which all these seven routes are plotted, and if on each such route you enter the altitude and situation of every pass they respectively cross over, you would possibly be tempted at the first glance to thread together on one line all the highest passes, and say that these are the passes which are situated in the main range of the Arka-tagh. But that would be an entirely erroneous assumption; the direction of the Arka-tagh would in that case be incorrectly drawn, and a priori highly improbable, and all the more so because we know that certain latitudinal valleys in that region run in directions which point to entirely different conclusions. Although a certain pass on, say, route (4) is the highest on that route and attains an altitude of 5203 m., while the highest pass on route (6) has an altitude of 5450 m., it by no means follows that these two culminating passes are situated in identically the same mountain-range, and the improbability is increased when the latter pass is situated almost half adegree to the south of the former. By joining them together we should make the main range of the Arka-tagh run in a direction that in no wise corresponds with the direction of the adjacent latitudinal valleys, and it would be difficult to understand the connections between the passes farther north belonging to the several different routes. For while we have ascertained, that in that section the Arka-tagh does as a fact consist of several parallel ranges, it is abundantly clear that these various ranges may vary in altitude in different localities. On the other hand two
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