Lighten. Standing on the pass one sees the last of the Aksai-chin Basin after having ascended slowly during six days, and to the east one has a quite new, very curious and much more beautiful landscape where the southern range and the blue lake particularly catch ones attention.
Just east of the threshold the living rock is greyish green calcareous sandstone. Farther on it is grey dense limestone. A little open valley goes down to the lake, and has a brook with some water, receiving still smaller tributaries from the left or north. The ground is swampy, and there is some good grass in the sand. The little valley turns to the N. E. To the S. S. E. the western end of the lake is visible. It looks as if both the southern and the northern mountains were falling steeply down into the lake, which is, however not the case as there is a more or less narrow plain between their foot and the lake. Along the western shore there is also a belt of even ground with sand, fine gravel, sparse grass and yapkak plants. Still, from the general morphology of this basin, one gets the impression that the depth of the lake must be considerable, and such is also the case, remembering that this lake is on the Tibetan plateau-land. On a little terrace of sand and grass, at the base of which springs came up, Camp X V was pitched some 5 m. above the surface of the lake.
The panorama, 3 1 A and 3I B, Tab. 6, taken from Camp XV is very interesting and shows the outlines both of the southern range and the lake. It goes around the whole horizon. Beginning from N. 50° E. we see a considerable valley coming down to the lake from the northern mountains. N. 84° E. rises a red mountain group with comparatively low depressions on both sides, one visible to the N. 79° E. where a distant peak appears, the other to the east being a red saddle. The northern one is probably the one taken by Stein on his journey in 1906-1908, the southern the one followed by Wellby and Malcolm in 1896. S. 82° E. is the last peak visible from here, belonging to the magnificent southern range, the highest tops and ridges of which continue in a long series from E. S. E., S. E. and south to S. 9° W. Compared with the map, Pl. 2, the panorama shows that the relief of the southern range is much more complicated and irregular than could be represented on the map, which only gives the situation of the range in rough outlines. The white parts of the panorama are snow, the shaded are rock in the glowing red, pink and yellow colours mentioned above. The névés and firns of the range are too small to be able to form glaciers. On this side, which faces the north, the eternal snow goes down to the very base of the mountains, and it is possible that glaciers would have been formed if the surface of the plateau had not been so near, viz. at 5,095 m. The highest peaks of the range may be at 6,500 or perhaps nearly 7000 m. Their relative height is, therefore, only 1,500 or nearly -)000 m., and the length of the slopes is too short to give space enough for the development of glaciers. This is,
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