During the march no water was seen. It would have been absolutely impossible to tell in what direction this plain sloped. It seemed perfectly level except for small undulations of the ground. One had, however, the feeling that a large watercourse existed somewhere to the right and directed to the N. E. Living rock was passed only once on a little knoll of greyish white, dense limestone. The ground is also of soft material, sand, fine gravel and dust. The northern snowy group is comparatively near, and belongs to the mountains bounding the latitudinal valley to the north. Its slopes, therefore, seem to go directly down to the great plain of the latter. To the left of our route there is a series of very low and flat hills which probably may be regarded as the last ramifications of the snow group. From these hills many watercourses come down. None of them contain water, but a few are still moist, and they seem to carry a considerable amount of water in summer. All of them turn eastwards to the main watercourse, situated to our right and not clearly visible. The grass vegetation comes to an end, but sparse yapkaks are still seen. Finally all kind of vegetation ceases and the ground is absolutely barren. On the northern side of the great valley, Camp XXIX was pitched at the left side of a main watercourse which had a 1 m. high erosion terrace at the left side and contained some not quite fresh water.
Pan. 45A and 45B, Tab. 8, taken from Camp XXIX, shows the appearance of the highlands and mountains all around the horizon. To the S. E. and S. S. E. there are ranges of medium height, and to the S. i2° W. we see the whole Deasy Group at a distance of about 36 km. To the N. 5 5° W. is the highest peak of the northern snow-group which now is very easily visible. Towards the east the ground slopes from north to south.
On October 41/i the direction is E. N. E. for 13.7 km. and the floor of the valley here slopes downwards 67 m., for Camp XXX is at a height of 5,024 m., which is as 1:204. The differences of height are here, disregarding the mountains, so small, that the surface of the plateau-land may be said to be practically level. The country remains as monotonous as ever. The snow-groups north and south of the valley are left behind more and more — this is the only variation. The rest of the distant panorama is hidden by low hills of detritus. Even gravel is rare, the material constituting the floor of the valley is extremely comminuted and appears to be in a very advanced form of division. It seems as if even the agencies of denudation and weathering had very little left to do in these regions.
We follow the watercourse which passes the camp, towards the east. It contains some pools and, for a short distance, even some running water which proves that the ground falls to the east, a fact that could not otherwise be settled except by means of instruments. The main brook of the valley which hitherto had only been suspected of flowing north eastwards , now came in sight and remained in
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