IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Southern Tibet : vol.7 |
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Citation Information
il
THE N. E. STRETCHING RANGE. 329
quite recent time captured the four lakes: Buka-nor, Eldzighen-nor, Dzida-nor, and Khara-nor, situated in a district still marked by all the characteristics of a steppe country. This view is wrong as the four lakes, as represented on older maps, do not exist, and those which exist at the place have no outlet to the east.
But from the existence of the sources of these rivers on the »remarkable line», Richthofen draws the conclusion that a tremendous threshold must be situated here, which is without a rival as a feeder of gigantic rivers. This threshold, he says, is
also remarkable as a physico-geographical boundary between the steppe and desert
highland of Khor to the N. W. and the deep-cut valleys to the S. E. In the N. W. the plastic of the ground is hidden by subaërial deposits, in the S. E. everything is opened up by the action of running water. But the boundary should not be supposed to be very sharp. Gradually one form goes over in the other. The relative height of this elevation must be considerable, — otherwise it could not catch the humidity of the S. W. winds, which are quite dry when reaching the steppes beyond.
Richthofen regards this elevation as very important in the orography of Asia, for, proceeding from west to east, it is the first range one meets having a stretching from S. W. to N. E. This direction prevails in what Richthofen calls the Sinian System. The imaginary range is also a boundary wall to the highland of Khor.
About his theories as to the existence of a north-east-wards stretching Tang-la Range, Richthofen adds a note saying that since he wrote the above passages in
1874, he had not changed his text in the least in 1877. He had built up his theory
on Chinese authority alone. But later on he had obtained proofs which corroborated his views in the most striking way. The confirmation was given by the journey of MONTGOMERIE'S PUNDIT of 1872, who followed the S. W. portion of Richthofen's Tang-la for 150 miles, and found it stretching north-east-ward. And the Pundit found this portion of the range exactly where Richthofen from Chinese maps, had supposed it to be. One of the Pundit's snow peaks was the famous Nien-chen-tang-la, the existence of which was, however, known long before the journey of the Pundit. He points to the fact that the Pundit could see other snowy peaks stretching far away to the N. E. The Pundit thus had proved that the so far hypothetical Tang-la really existed in its south-western part, and as it here gave rise to many and abundant rivers running south-east-wards, Richthofen supposed that the case was the same the whole way in the N. E. continuation of the range.
The material brought back by Huc had not been sufficient for drawing such far-reaching conclusions. But after the Pundit's journey, Richthofen regarded the problem as solved. He did not recognize in the Nien-chen-tang-la Range an eastern continuation of the Aling-gangri Range, as he calls the one north of the Tsangpo. To him both were perfectly independent folds and belonged to different systems. The Aling-gangri belonged to the Himalayan System, the Nien-chen-tang-la to the
42. VII.
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