range bordering our latitudinal valley on the north, is very rugged and rocky with steep pyramidal peaks cropping up out of the heaps of detritus. It was of a reddish yellow colour. To the right or south of our route, we had low rounded hills. Finally the valley becomes broad and open. The principal watercourse is crossed through 1 m. deep snow, after which we keep to the top of the left terrace where the snow is swept away by the wind. The bed follows the base of the southern hills. Several small furrows from the rocky range to the north go down to the principal bed. The ground was sand and fine gravel. In the mouth of a little valley to the south, some grass appeared, and here we pitched our Camp CCCX III!. The snow was less deep here than higher up in the valley. There was no wind, but it went on snowing. At 3 o'clock p. m. a regular gale came from the S. W. With indescribable fury it blew through the valley, and at the same time it snowed very fast. The temperature was at — i 6.4°. It is difficult to imagine the hardships of such a journey. Only very little fuel could be found as everything was covered with snow. Eleven wild yaks were seen on a snowy hill in the neighbourhood where we camped, No other tracks of wild animals had been noticed. A little higher up in the valley we had seen a fireplace made of three stones where Tibetan hunters had camped, perhaps long ago. This was the first time since Arport-tso, that we had passed a place visited by natives. At 10.30 o'clock p. m. the severe snow-storm ceased. At 9 o'clock the stars were visible through the snow-fog.
On 7anuary 31st, we marched only 4.7 km. to the S. E., the valley falling 76 m. or at a rate of i : 62. The temperature in the night, had been down to —26.9°; it snowed again in the morning, and nothing could be discerned of the surroundings. We had, therefore, only to follow the chief erosion bed of the valley, which, a short distance below Camp CCCX VII, turns around a black projecting rock at the right side. The snow was now about one foot deep everywhere, and two or three feet in the erosion beds. In the mouth of a little side valley to the right, some yellow grass-straws peeped up through the snow. At another place the three usual stones proved that hunters had been camping, as the country is too high and too far north for nomads. The valley falls extremely slowly to the S. E. At a place where the wind had blown away the snow and the grass was good we made Camp CCCX VIII, at a height of 5,249 m. Fuel, consisting of plants and yak dung, was plentiful. Four wild yaks were seen retiring to the west.
Early in the afternoon Shemen-tso became visible to the S. E. The shoreline of the lake could easily be distinguished, though only on the northern side, for the southern disappeared in snow-fog. The plain just north of the lake, appeared to be dark as if no snow had fallen there. It, therefore, seemed probable that we were going to leave behind us the very high protuberance of the plateau-land, where the greatest amount of the snow falls in January. Ever since we had reached these
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