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
1
NOVARESE'S OROGRAPHY.
477
LONGSTAFF'S supposition that the Teram Kangri was formed of limestone, has attained a certain probability from the Italian observation in the Gasherbrum massif. It rises about S. E. of Broad Peak. The extension of the Siachen Glacier to the vicinity of the mountains at the head of the Baltoro increases the importance of the Italian observations.
LONGSTAFF and NEVE supposed that the Siachen was in communication with the Baltoro directly over a saddle at the base of Hidden Peak, in the same way as the Biafo and the Hispar. But such a continuity does not exist. The Kondus Glacier, south of the Broad massif, comes in between them. It is not impossible, however, that, in spite of the interruption, Baltoro and Siachen lie in the same tectonic furrow. But the analogy in the two cases does not exist.
The course of the water-parting between the Indus and Yarkand-darya has been proved by the Italians to be much more complicated than shown on the maps.
NOVARESE gives the following résumé of the orography:
The Karakoram, like the Himalaya of which it is the western portion, consists of a series of chains parallel to each other, and also approximately parallel to the course of the geological zones and leading tectonic features, ill-known as yet, of the whole great system. The rivers flow in open valleys between these chains , and narrow, deep-cut channels, frequently reduced to impassable gorges, by which the rivers pass from one valley to the next, sever the chains in pieces. Consequently, although the lines of peaks appear continuous on the map and exhibit a sensible parallelism, the principal watershed, and many of the secondary ones, have a very different course, proceeding by stretches as they pass from one range to another by means of transverse ridges, which separate the divergent slopes of each of the furrows contained between a pair of ranges. — On the whole then, as this passage of the watershed from one chain to the next takes place for long stretches in a regular manner, always from a more forward range to one further back, the complex course of the line of watershed cuts, at a very acute angle, the general direction of the ranges, so that it is easy, in ill-known parts of the system , to confound two quite distinct members with each other and regard them as only one. Just this confusion was made in all maps anterior to i q i o in the country between the Upper Baltoro and the Karakoram pass. — The discovery of the Upper Siachen, and of Teram Kangri, has shown the existence of a great longitudinal furrow, occupied by a glacier, and of a chain, parallel to that, well known and fixed, which runs from K 2 to Hidden Peak and, up to now, was called the main range of the Karakoram. The ridge by which the watershed crossed from this to that of Teram Kangri is formed by that saddle between the head of the Kondus and the Siachen which was seen from Chogolisa. The chain of K 2 is truncated by the Kondus valley, whose tortuous course in the upper part indicates a breach of continuity, filled with ice , but where this disappears, exhibiting itself as one of those impassable gorges in which the Karakoram is rich. It is probable that the continuation of the chain of K 2 is that in which the peaks K 9 and K 10-11 are found, these latter over 25,000 feet in height, and in the Saltoro chain to K 12 and beyond.
In conclusion, Novarese finds it certain
that the water-parting between the Indus and the Central Asian drainage , after passing the peaks of K 2, Broad, Gasherbrum and Hidden , turns eastwards to a parallel
it
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