国立情報学研究所 - ディジタル・シルクロード・プロジェクト
『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

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ONLY ONE RANGE NORTII OF THE TSANGPO.   195

water-parting of the Brahmaputra must here approach much closer to the river and run in a south-easterly direction. On the 89th meridian, it descends as low as the 3oth parallel in the Shiang Lahu range, which appears to be connected with the great Ninjin-thangla range of snowy peaks to the south of the Jang Namcho or Tengri-nor lake with a trend to the north-east, for it gives the head-waters of the Ki-chu or Lhasa river from its southern slope, as well as other important streams further east, regarding which our information is still very imperfect. To the northeast we find the Nak-chu-kha or Hota Sanpo, a large river that issues from the Chargut lake about north latitude 32° and east long. 89°, and flows eastward, having its drainage area on the south, bounded by the water-parting between it and the Brahmaputra basin.»

Atkinson thus believed, from Nain Sing's exploration, in one range of lofty peaks north of the Tsangpo. He regards Nain Sing's rivers, Chachu and Charta, as coming from this range, which does not agree with his map, where the Charta pierces the range. His general physical geography in these regions is very clever, — it has only one fault: to be built upon descriptions of rivers and ranges which do not exist in reality. The Dumphu-chu of Nain Sing has turned everything, not least the water-parting, upside down. The same is the case with the river Nak-chu-kha and with the north-eastern continuation of the Nien-chen-tang-la. He believes that the lakes on the plateau-land are connected by the Nak-chu-kha, which finds its outlet in one of the great rivers to the east of the Dihong.' He regards the northern part of Tibet as a great uninhabited plain or a plateau of great elevation.

But he also says that so little is known of the Tibetan plateau, »that it is impossible to offer any general account of it based upon actual observation; but as far as we may judge from those parts that have been explored, it appears that the surface is, with few exceptions, broken up into a mass of mountains, the general elevation of which, valleys as well as ridges, is very great; and there seems no reason for supposing that either the Himalaya or Kuenlun have any definite special existence as mountain ranges apart from the general elevated mass of which they appear to be the two opposite faces . . .2»

To a certain extent he is right in joining Himalaya and Kwen-lun intimately with the great bulk of the highland, but on the other hand all the different systems are separate individuals, which, taken together, form this immense plateau of the earth's crust. The interior of this high-land he believes to be broken up into a mass of mountains. The parallelism between all these different systems could of course not be known in 1882. Only 25 years later was the first attempt made to show that this parallelism prevails all over Tibet and that Tibet is what the Germans call a »Faltenland», and as such greater than any other on the earth.3

(

I Op. cit. p. 73.

2 Op. cit. p. I16.

3 See my Scientific Results, Vol. IV, maps facing pp. 565 and 581 showing the parallel

systems of Tibet.