IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
| |||||||||
|
| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Southern Tibet : vol.7 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Citation Information
604
DE FILIPPI'S EXPEDITION ACROSS THE KARA-KORUM MOUNTAINS.
a point of great geographical importance, upon the discovery of which this Society should most sincerely congratulate Dr. DE FILIPPI.» I
After having climbed to the watershed saddle of the tributary glacier, being 5884 m. high, DE FILIPPI returned and completed the exploration of the main branch of the Remo Glacier. One of its saddles leads to the Siachen Glacier, another, to the north, marks the wathershed. With great energy and admirable pluck the region was explored in many directions in spite of very severe weather and heavy snowfalls
which hindered the expedition in its work. DE FILIPPI tells us that even the ordinary caravan road across the Kara-korum Pass which nearly always is open, now for some
days had been encumbered with snow. »It may therefore be assumed that the summer of 1914 was an exceptionally unlucky season.» It would be of great interest to know whether this heavy precipitation during the winter of 1913-1914 has had any consequences as regards the hydrography of the Manasarovar—Rakas-tal—Satlej system. From the reports of the reconnaissance expedition to Mount Everest in 1921 one also gets the impression that in the Eastern Himalaya as well, though several years later, the precipitation has been heavier than usual.
August 20 the Kara-korum Pass was crossed. Its height was found to be 5 800 m.2 Again the expedition was split into two parties. DE FILIPPI took the
way of the Suget-davan, 5 40o m.3, to Suget-karaul in the Kara-kash valley, after
which Kirghiz-jangal in the Yarkand-darya valley was reached. It is a pity that his plan of exploring the Oprang valley, which previously had been visited only by
YOUNGHUSBAND4 and GROMBTCHEVSKIY 5, had to be abandoned. It is also a pity that his intention to explore the Aghil Range6 could not be carried out by reason of the late season. Again YOUNGHUSBAND is right when he says: »The source of the Oprang River and its upper basin still remain to be explored, and it is one of
the most interesting fields of exploration still remaining in the Himalayas».7 Still the Western tributaries of the Yarkand-darya, contrary to the surmises of DE FILIPPI,
were not found to rise on the northern slopes of the Kara-korum, but from a snowbound chain to the north of it, which was supposed to separate the basin of the
I At another place DE FILIPPI says of this glacier: »The Remo is a glacier of unexpected size
and importance. Its area is more than 30o square miles in extent and is formed by three large rivers of ice, each about z o miles in length and 3 to 5 miles wide. The glacier has many peculiar characteristics, and its basin is, as it were, a transition between valley and plateau. This is only an instance of a more or less general phenomenon which we found prevalent in our explorations of the region.» Geographical Journal, Vol. XLV, p. 232.
2 I have 5658 m.
3 I have 5434 m.
4 Cp. above p. 355.
5 Cp. above p. 356.
6 Regarding the Aghil Range in its relation to the Kara-korum and Kwen-lun, according to BURKARD, cp. above p. 489.
7 Geographical Journal, Vol. XLVI, p. 102.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Copyright (C) 2003-2019 National Institute of Informatics and The Toyo Bunko. All Rights Reserved.