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LORD CURZON'S VIEW REGARDING THE NAME: TRANSIIIMALAYA•   233

Kailas range was first introduced by Sir Alex. Cunningham in 1847, although he attached it only to the western portion of the system, ' — further that it would be as absurd to call the whole Transhimalayan system »Kailas range» as it would be to call the Tian-shan the Khan-tengri range or Kwen-lun the Mus-tagh-ata range, for here a double cause of complication comes in, first that it is not a range, but a system of many ranges, and secondly that Kailas is a local name for a peak only. Finally it is superfluous to talk any further of the quoted objection, as Colonel Burrard himself has abandoned the name Kailas for the Trans-Tsangpo mountains.2 On the other hand the name Kailas range should be used only for the range to which Kailas belongs, and under such conditions the Kailas range becomes, as it is in reality, only a part of the great Transhimalayan system. I have pointed out before that Reclus' Trans-Himalaya was a m' ori a very unfortunate name for Burrard's Ladak range.3 I should have preferred the Water-parting or the Northern Himalaya or something like it, which showed that it is a part of the Himalayan system. The name Ladak range only shows that a portion of it is situated in Ladak. But then we could as well call the Kwen-lun the Pamir or Tagdumbash system. As, however, the name Ladak range is settled in geography, it would be unwise to try and substitute another instead of it. The case of a Kara-korum system even in the heart of Tibet cannot quite be compared with the Ladak range between Lhasa and Calcutta. For Kara-korum is the name of a mountain system and Ladak of an alpine country.

The following is Lord CURZON's view regarding my proposal to call the system Transhimalaya : 4 »As regards the name which Dr. Hedin has given to it, I will only say that the desiderata for the title of a new and momentous geographical discovery appear to be these: (I) that the name should if possible be given by the principal (Dr. Hedin would not say himself that he was the sole, or even the first) discoverer;

2.  that it should not be unpronounceable, unwriteable, over-recondite, or obscure;

3.  that it should if possible possess some descriptive value; and (4) that it should not violate any acknowledged canons of geographical nomenclature. The name

Trans-Himalaya combines all these advantages, and it has a direct Central Asian

analogy in the Trans-Alai which is a range of mountains, standing in the same relation to the Alai, that Trans-Himalaya will do to Himalaya. I am not in the least impressed by the fact that the name was once given to another range, where

its unsuitability secured its early extinction. Any attempts to substitute another title on the present occasion will, in my opinion, be foredoomed to failure.» 5

Laclàk, p. so.

2 Therefore W. BROADFOOT is only partly correct when he says: »in India it is believed that

the senior officers of the Survey Department dislike the name, preferring the old name, Kailas range».

Geographical Journal, March 191o, Vol. XXXV, p. 324.

3 This name was first introduced, not by Burrard and Hayden, but by Godwin-Austen.

4 Geographical Journal, April 1909, Vol. XXXIII, p. 435.

5 Lord Curzon even uses the expressions Trans-Pamir and trans-Pamir. The Pamirs and the

Source of the Oxus. Reprinted from the Geographical Journal for July, August, and September 1896, p. 72 and 82.

3o--141741 11/.