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
ROBERT SHAW.
256
by the great flood on blocks of ice, which got stranded, and in melting , left the débris with which they had been charged.
Over the Saser Pass he reached inhabited country.
In spite of Shaw's not quite clear views regarding the Kara-korum Range, the latter is represented in very dark and sharp features on his map, Pl. LV.' There is no southern Kara-korum, only one single range, crossed by the passes Mus-tagh and Kara-koorum. No attention has, therefore, been paid to the discoveries of VIGNE, GODWIN-AUSTEN, and others regarding the High Kara-korum with the gigantic peaks and glaciers. He regards the Sanju-davan as situated on the northern crest of the Kwen-lun Mountains, — but it is surprising to read »Thian Shan Range» on the range south of it. From this Thian Shan Range his map has a range branching off east-north-east, which is the Kwen-lun, and another to the south-east, in which the Suget-davan is situated.
On the little Sketch Map of the Country north of India, at the end of Shaw's book, only the Kuen Lun or Koulkoun Mts. and the Himalaya Mountains are entered, but no Kara-korum. Here the influence of HUMBOLDT may be traced.
In the article Central Asia in 1872,2 Robert Shaw, however expressed his views regarding the »great revolution» which had recently taken place in our ideas of the mountain-systems of Central Asia. He gives a short résumé of HUMBOLDT'S views, but recent observers, both British and Russian, were inclined to alter the arrangement.
With regard to the unity of the Kwen-lun with the rest of the Himalaya, Shaw had seen it and could 'testify to it. His reasoning is this: if you go up into the mountains, you are to consider yourself as being in the same chain until you come clown again. Therefore certainly the Kwen-lun and the Himalaya are one. The fact that you cross several parallel ranges and ridges does not interfere. He does not find any reason why the Kwen-lun should be called a separate chain. If the Oberland is a part of the Alps, then the Kwen-lun is a part of the Himalaya. He tells us of a sportsman, Captain SKINNER, who went to the upper Kara-kash and who left the Kara-korum Pass to the west, when he returned. In Leh he asked Shaw: »What has become of the Karakoram Range? it has vanished!» And Shaw adds: »Having thus abolished the Karakoram Chain, we may, I think, proceed to do the same with several others, and notably with Humboldt's I3olor or Belut-Tagh.» As to the city of Bolor, he leaves it to fade into the same mist of confusion as the Karakoram Range and the kingdom of Prester John. He denies the existence of Humboldt's north and south running Bolor Range, so much the more as »it is
I Map of the Route from Leh to Yarkand â Kashghar prepared from Mr. Shaw's data å native ii formation.
2 Proceedings Royal Geographical Society. Vol. XVI. 1872, p. 395 et seq.
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