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 KAILAS RANGE AND THE TRANSHIMALAVA.
559
South of the Panggong the Sajum (6 i o3 m.) is situated on the Kailas Range. Burrard regards the alignment from Sajum to the junction of the Nubra and Shayok as uncertain. The stretching I have now sketched seems, however, plausible, though a smaller fold runs along the S.W. shore of the Panggong-tso and along a part of the Shayok below its sharp bend; this fold is pierced by the Tanksi-Drugub River through the valley of which the Panggong river from Tibet once escaped to the
Shayok.
From the Sajum peak the Kailas Range continues S. E. bordering the valleys of the Indus and Gartang, and on 321° North Lat. it is pierced in a transverse valley by the Singi-kamba or Uppermost Indus. Then it runs between the Gartang and Lang-chu. The Jukti-hloma-la (5825 m.) is situated on it. In Singtod its situation is unknown, but it certainly forms the water-parting between the uppermost Singikamba and the Satlej along the section of its course from Rakas-tal to Gerik-jung. A series of passes of the same geomorphological importance as the Tseti-lachen-la (5466 m.) and Tseti-la (562 8 m.) are situated on its crest. The Kailas (67 16 m.) cannot be said to be situated on the Kailas Range, though of course, it belongs to the Kailas system. The Sacred Mount rises on a short parallel range in front of the main range, and of much more pronounced alpine character than the so-called Kailas Range.
So far S. E. as to the flat threshold of Surnge-la (5276 m.), the Kailas Range of Burrard may thus easily be traced. And with full reason it may be called a range, even if it here and there has small secondary ranges of the same system at its sides. But from Surnge-la where the N. W.— S. E. direction is smoothly changed into a direction from west to east, the orographical arrangement assumes a quite different character. It is impossible and absurd any longer to talk of a range running along the northern side of the Tsangpo - Brahmaputra valley, as has been done by some geographers and mapmakers. Burrard did it also on his frontispiece map, but this was published before I had finished my exploration in the Transhimalaya.
No doubt the Transhimalaya has to be regarded as the same crustal fold as the Kailas Range, and as being in a very intimate geotectonic relation to the latter. But the tangential forces which have pressed the whole Kailas Range, down to Surnge-la, into so beautiful and regular a crustal fold, have, east of the same pass, broken up the earth's crust in a most fantastic way, giving rise to a labyrinth of ranges, which seem to be arranged according to a certain symmetrical system or orographical law, but which also run in all possible directions, from east to west as well as from north to south ; from N. W. to S. E. as well as from N. E. to S. W.
I have no objection to the name Kailas Range from the beginning of this system in the west as determined by Burrard , and to the region of Surnge-la or a little farther east. It may seem curious, it is true, to call a range that runs through
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