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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THE KWEN-LUN LAKES.
495
The first five lakes of our table are situated at the southern foot of the principal Kwen-lun Range; the same that acts as a water-parting between the Tarim Basin to the north and the self-contained I area of the Tibetan plateau-land to the south. The lakes are therefore, as a rule, fed by the melting snows and glaciers of the same range, and, generally, each lake is situated in the southern part of its basin, as could be expected from morphological reasons. Only Yeshil-köl may be said to be placed in the midst of its very irregular basin, while the Pool-tso which is separated by the latter from the Kwen-lun, is situated in the N. W. part of its basin. All these lakes with the exception of the Yeshil-köl only, are situated near the western edge of their basins, Lake Aksai-chin and Lighten Lake being only at a few kilometers from the latter. The basins of the two last-mentioned lakes are the largest, being 6850 and 3925 square km. respectively.
The eastern neighbour of the Yeshil-köl basin is unknown, though DE RHINS, WELLBY, RAWLING and I have crossed it in its western and southern portions. This basin seems to be of considerable size. Then follows, still farther eastwards, a rather large area of terra incognita stretching to 86° E. Long., where I crossed it in 1896. To the north it is bounded by the Kwen-lun border ranges, and to the south by the route of WELLBY and MALCOLM in 1896. Very likely there are several lakes to be found in this region, so much the more so as Lac de l'Antilope, Lac des Corbeaux and my chain of lakes from No. I to No. XX of 1896 must be regarded as probably situated along the southern basin of the Kwen-lun proper and in the same latitudinal2 valley as the Yeshil-köl.
As appears from the table, the group of eastern Kwen-lun lakes just mentioned is characterized by comparatively small basins and comparatively large lakes. The largest of the latter, No. XVIII, is nearly of the same size as Wellby's Lighten Lake. The largest basin is the one of Lake No. XX, having 4575 square km. My lakes No. XXI and XXII certainly belong to the self-contained area of Tibet. East of them begins the region with drainage to the Yang-tse River. The lake which I only saw at a distance in 1896 and which was discovered by CAREY and DALGLEISH in 1886 may possibly belong to the self-contained area of the Tibetan plateauland. If this be the case we know 31 lakes along the southern base of Kwen-lun proper.
In the northernmost region of the Tibetan highland the Kwen-lun System spreads out like a fan or like the fingers of an open hand. One of its branches, the Kalta-alaghan (or alakan), is of special importance as being the water-parting to Eastern Turkestan. South of it and of its south-western continuation we find a
I By the term »self-contained» I mean a basin that has no outlet to the sea, nor, in the case of Tibet, to Eastern Turkestan and Tsaidam.
2 By a »latitudinal » valley I mean the long depression or folding-trough that is situated between two mountain ranges or systems, and therefore, as a rule, parallel to the latitudes. I never use the term longitudinal valley. Valleys crossing a range or system I call transverse valleys.
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