which is sand. Near Pidjan I saw a similar though lower range, and Prjevalsky mentions seeing one near Sachow.
The Hurku Hills come to an end here, and we could see before us across the plain, at a distance of eighty miles, the outlying spurs of the Altai Mountains ; but though the former terminated here as a continuous range, yet they are connected to a certain extent, by a series of isolated hills to the north, with the Altai Mountains. This connection may, perhaps, be best illustrated by supposing the country to be flooded to a height of about four thousand feet above ordinary sea-level. Then on the west would be seen the great headlands of the Altai Mountains ; on the east two capes (the Hurku Hills and the southern range) running out into the ocean. To the north would be a series of islands, stepping-stones as it were, forming the connection between the Hurku Hills and the Altai Mountains. To the south would be the open sea.
The Hurku range has an extreme length of about two hundred and twenty miles. It is highest in the western end, where it presents rather the appearance of a string of elongated ridges than of a continuous range, as it does further east. Its highest point is the prominent mountain, for which I obtained the name Barosakhai, but which I have not the slightest doubt is identical with the mountain called by the Russian traveller Pevstof, Gourbaun-Seikyn.* The height of this mountain is probably about eight thousand feet above the sea, and it had slight snow on it in the middle of June.
The ridges to the west of this have a height of about seven thousand feet ; while to the east, where Prjevalsky crossed the range, it was 612o feet above sea-level, and from that point it still diminishes in height to the eastward—at its termination having an approximate height of five thousand feet. Its width, where Prjevalsky crossed, is seven miles. Throughout it pre-
* I found it very hard to get at the proper pronunciation from the Mongols. The n's are scarcely heard, and it is possible I may not have caught them.
IIIFカラー高解像度
