valley, to the Mustagh Pass; eastward by K 2, the peak that during some years carried his own name, farther to the high peaks north of the Shayok, K 9, K i o, K i 1 , and K 12, the Saser Pass, and thence S. E. to the Marsimik-la, and the high mass north of the Panggong Lake. »Crossing at Nyak Tso on to the high range south of the Rudok plain, where we again enter unsurveyed ground.»
Then follows this very important and certainly nearly correct theory, that only could be expressed by a man of such great intelligence and capacity as GODWINAUSTEN. The Mustagh Range »is probably continuous to the Aling Gangri, the old original drainage of the Shayok passing through it at the Panggong Lake, thus repeating in a similar way that of the Indus through the Ladak range near Hanlé.» S. E. of the Panggong-tso is the Rudok Plain, on the same meridian as the sources of the Indus and the Tsangpo, only a little above 14,000 feet, which in glacial and pre-glacial times drained into the Shayok, rendering that branch probably longer than that of the present Indus. Nowadays we know that the Rudok Plain is not on the same meridian as the sources of the Indus and Tsangpo, and that the Indus branch of Panggong-tso, even in glacial time, hardly could be as long as the present Singikamba. But these are only small corrections that do not in the least diminish the value of Godwin-Austen's original and clever hypothesis. He had seen the Rudok Plain with his own eyes, and for a distance of some 6o miles he saw it bounded to the south by mountains of over 21,000 feet. But he was lead astray when he surmised that this depression could have anything to do with the headwaters of the rivers that find an exit to the sea through Burma. By reason of this arrangement, as he perceived it, he could not join the Kara-korum and Gangri Range to one and the same system: »The Gang-rhi and Karakoram, or Mustagh, cannot be therefore considered as one range separating the Indus Basin from that of the northern or central plateau of Tibet.» But, on the other hand, he says of the great water-parting: »This must lie across the broad elevated plateau that extends from the Karakoram pass, having a general parallelism to the Kuenlun certainly so far as 34° N. and long. 82° E.» Though he does not dare to sketch the prolongation of the northern Kara-korum beyond 82° E. long., he has here gone much farther in the right direction than any one of his predecessors.
Regarding his Karakorum-Lingzi-Thang Range, he does not feel solid ground under his feet. West of the pass, probably the Kara-korum Pass, the country was unknown. »Eastward the line of elevation passes north of the Dipsang plain to the Compass La, and south of the Lingzi Thang plain, by the Changlung Burma La to the neighbourhood of the Kiang La, and thence still further east it may pass north of Sarthol into Garchethol.» On the whole this theory is, however, very much in accordance with facts, though in our days we are able to approach the reality somewhat nearer.
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