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
266
J. W. HAYWARt.
Apparently that marked distinction between the systems of the Bolor, Kuen-lun, Himalayas and Hindoo-kush, which is pointed out by Humboldt, does not actually exist. The three first appear merged, as it were, into one common elevation , the axis of which stretches from north-west to south-east. According to the measurements of Schlagintweit, the highest range in this elevation is the central one of the Kara-korum, the Himalayas, and the Kuen-Lun; the marginal ranges of the general elevation are lower, but have a direction from west to east. At Nepaul detached peaks of the Himalayas do rise above the Kara-korum, though the Himalayan Range does not exceed the latter in its general height. As far as the sources of the Indus, the Himalayan system, i. e. the elevations on both sides of the Kara-korum, presents, according to Cunningham's map, two different directions of mountain chains, the principal ones being north-western and south-eastern ranges, lying north-east and south-west, which directions are similar to those in the Bolor Mountains .... The Bolor is not a distinct meridional range, but merely a north-western continuation of the Himalayas, or, more correctly, of the Himalayan branch of the Tsun-lin, which is a gigantic convexity, connecting, by means of gradual transitions, the system of the Thian-Shan with that of the Himalayas.
SEVERTSOFF states that HUMBOLDT'S five mountain systems: Altai, Tian-shan,
Kwen-lun, Himalaya and Bolor, according to more recent exploration had been reduced to three: Altai, Tian-shan and Himalaya. In this opinion we recognize SHAW'S view, for he made the Kwen-lun, Kara-korum and Himalaya into one single system. Humboldt's view was more correct than Severtsoff's improvement. Humboldt's system was too simple, although Severtsoff, on Shaw's authority, made it still simpler. To use a German word, the Geôirgsgliederung is much more complicated than was believed in those days.
R. MICHELL in his article on The Russianr. Exj5editiou lo the Alai and Pamir, however, finds certain resemblances between HUMBOLDT'S system and HAYWARD'S meridional range. He says:
Humboldt drew his continuous line of mountains from the Himalayas to the ThianShan, in a direction from S. S. E. to N. N. W. From the meridian of Yarkand this is indeed the direction of Lieut. Hayward's »Kizyl-Part Range» ; and this is as much a watershed between Eastern and Western Turkestan as the ridge which the Pundit Manphul has appropriately termed the Pamir range ; but the Pundit's range runs in a direction from S. S. W. to N. N. E.; and taken separately under its distinctive name, it might more correctly lj be said to bound the Pamir Steppes on the south-east, Hayward's range being clearly their eastern limit in the north.
The name Kizyl-Yart does not, however, appear to be applicable to Hayward's Meridional Range, and would seem properly to attach only to a red ridge, and to a pass in the latitudinal Alai Mountains, which Fedchenko has called the Trans-Alais; although Captain Trotter also observes that that is the name by which the range in question is known to the Kashgarians.
PETERMANN compares SEVERTSOFF'S views with others of the time.2 In the report of the Trans-Himalayan Explorations 1869 it seems as if MONTGOMERIE
I Journal R. G. S. Vol. 47. 1877, p. 17 et seq. 2 Petermanns Mitteilungen. i 8 7 a, p. i6 7.
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