voluminous brook, containing at least 1 cub. m. of water per second, with a temperature of -J-0.9° flowed eastwards, and fell into an oblong lake filling nearly the whole breadth of the valley. It was frozen all over, but the brook continued some distance along the ice. It is indeed rare, in these dry regions, to find so much water in a single spring. Our route follows the southern shore of the »lake», sticking to the lower part of the screes of gravel and talus at the base of the southern mountains, which are rather low, of a red colour and with a good deal of snow. As may be seen through the openings of the southern tributaries, there is, south of this range, another that is higher and has, so far as can be judged in the mist, even some small glaciers. The mountains at the northern side of the valley are higher. On rounded hills at the sides of its flat tributary valleys, there is grass. In the N. W. part of the »lake», there is a rocky island. The ice-lake became more and more narrow to the east, and at places had a breadth of only 5o or I oo m. Stripes of gravel were seen here and there in the ice, and it became clear enough that what we had called a lake was simply sheets of ice formed during the early part of the winter, and then increasing more and more as the abundant spring was flowing uninterruptedly.
On December 29th, the march goes eastwards for 12.8 km. and the ground falls 53 m., as Camp CCXCII is at 5,246 m.; the slope is, therefore, very gradual or as I :241. The minimum temperature was —29.9°. The night had been clear, the morning and day were cloudy. In the morning the wind came from east and south, afterwards steadily from the west. The ice-sheet dwindles and ceases. From the south a large tributary valley opens out. Here the grass is very good. Now, occasionally, yak dung is seen, though rather rarely. A spring again comes up at the right or southern side of the valley. It has only 4 cub. m. per second but is quite sufficient to give rise to another lake-like ice-sheet in the valley, hardly 4 km. in length. Between it and the foot of the southern mountains, which send their steep slopes down to the edge of the ice, there is very little room for our passage among sharp-edged gravel. It is obvious that these ice-sheets, which indeed give the impression of frozen lakes, are only temporary phenomena of the cold season and nothing but frozen spring-water that increase during the whole winter, and, in the spring, dwindle and slowly disappear. In the summer, there must be an uninterrupted brook flowing down to the valley of Camp CCXCIII.
At the eastern end of the last ice-sheet, we cross the glass-clear ice of the brook and camp at a place where the grass is good and where the yapchan plants are abundant, affording the best of fuel. Pan. 380, Tab. 66, is a view of the valley looking eastwards from Camp CCXCII. The rock is greyish black dense schist, which was attainable in situ at Camp CCXCI.
On December 30M, our march continues down the valley 8.8 km. E. S. E. to Camp CCXCIII where the altitude is 5,14o m. or I o6 m. below the previous camp,
IIIFカラー高解像度
