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
THE WESTERN KWEN-LUN. 411
Except recent sediments and eruptive rocks he only found in Western Tibet hornblende-granite, sandstone and dark grey limestone with white veins. In spite of his energetic searching he could never find any fossils.
Zugmayer was the first to cross the country between the Sumjiling Plain and the Panggong Lakes. He agrees with Rawling who had stated that these parts of Western Tibet consist of a series of nearly parallel ranges stretching N. W. to S. E. S. W. of Kense-tsaka is a lake, which both Rawling and Zugmayer think drain to the Panggong Lakes; a statement that appears to be very doubtful. From his Camps XXXV to XXXVIII Zugmayer followed the valley of the river which empties into the first lake at Noh, and for which he could not find any name. I had followed the same way in November i 901, and then heard the river called Tsangar-shar by my Tibetan escort.'
On his map Zugmayer places Lake Lighten N. W. of Yeshil-kul and has a mountain range between the two, a representation that is not in accordance with reality. The mistake is due to the fact that Zugmayer did not himself visit Lake Lighten but had to rely upon the mapping of his predecessors.
From a geographical point of view Dr. Zugmayer's expedition has not brought much new information, but from a zoological point of view it has been very important. The traveller has also published a very well-written book on his experiences and results.2
Although the Kwen-lun is outside of our present discussion and historical review of exploration in Western Tibet, I cannot help mentioning in this connection a few extracts from Dr. M. A. STEIN'S important glacial observations in the Western Kwen-lun during his great expedition of 1906 to 1908, the best geographical work that has been carried out in this region.
From the eastern slopes of the Mus-tagh-ata Range he turned eastwards and made his way through unsurveyed ground along the right bank of the Tisnaf River to the outer Kwen-lun about Kok-yar. He followed a little-known route through the barren outer hills to Khotan at the close of July. His surveyor RAI RAM SING had been despatched for a survey of the snowy range towards the Kara-kash River. He reached it and pushed over the Hindu-tash Pass, about 17,400 feet high, »closed since many years by the advance of a great glacier».3 This was the last bit of terra incognita in the difficult mountain region between the middle courses of the two great Khotan Rivers, the Yurung-kash and Kara-kash.
One month was spent in supplementing his surveys of 1900 in the high Kwenlun Range south of Khotan, and here special attention was paid to the great glaciers which feed the headwaters of the Yurung-kash.
1 Central Asia and Tibet. London 1903. Vol. II, p. 549 et seq. Eine Reise durch Zentralasien im Jahre 1906. Berlin 1908.
3 Explorations in Central Asia. 7906—X. Geographical Journal. July 1909. Vol. XXXIV, p. 5.
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