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
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YULE AND MONTGOMIERIE.
249
alteration of the beds of débris and finer deposits, we can infer that there have been milder and moister seasons than at present exist, back to colder and drier.
With greater rainfall and a lower snowline, now above 20,000 feet, the former effluent from the lake should again cut through the Surtokh-la. A terrace 1 o feet below the present surface of the lake proved to Godwin-Austen that there had been a drier period in former times. The snowfall in the Himalaya must be less now than formerly, and the country passing through a period of diminishing falls. The only deduction Godwin-Austen can make from such comparatively recent changes is, that the level of the lake has been alternating with moist and dry periods of time, the slow process of which may be even now going on almost imperceptibly to man.
In later years this theory has been worked out by other scholars in a way which proves that Godwin-Austen was perfectly right.
He remarks that the Kara-korum glaciers are the only remaining rests of such enormous glaciers which in ages past must have occupied the Himalayan valleys, where strict' can be seen 150 or 200 feet high. And when glaciers extended down to 5,000 feet, he wonders what must have been the appearances of the Upper Shayok, Indus and Chang-chenmo, where 12,000 feet is the lowest level of the country.
Godwin-Austen supposes that the Panggong-tso is excessively deep, where the rocks go straight down. »It would be a most interesting scientific enquiry to sound the depth of this lake.» This wish should be fulfilled by subsequent travellers.
As a matter of fact very little was known regarding the Kara-korum System at this period. In 1866 Colonel YULE put together some longitudes assigned in the maps at his disposal to some of the chief points, his object being to show »how uncertain is still the basis of any map connecting the regions on the different sides of the Bolor, Karakorum, and T'ien Shan Ranges».'
In the following words Yule expresses his views regarding the course of the
main feeder of the Yarkand River.
According to Moorcroft's information, probably derived from Izzetoollah' (see 1. R. G. S., vol. i, p. 245), this rises in the north face of the Karakorum Pass, and flows in a northerly (north-westerly) direction to a point where it receives drainage from the (Eastern) Sarikul, and the Bolor Mountains, and then turns east (north-east) towards Yarkand. But, according to the best interpretation I can put upon the Chinese Hydrography translated by Julien (N. Ann. des Voyages 1846, III, 23 segy.), the river rising in Karakorum, which I take to be that there termed Tingosapuho, only joins the stream from Karchu and Sarikul below Yarkand. 2
A few extracts from T. G. MONTGOMERIE'S Reports should be inserted here. In 1868 he says:
I Cathay and the way thither. Vol. I, p. 2 Op. cit., p. 317.
32. VII.
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