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0132 Explorations in Turkestan 1903 : vol.1
Explorations in Turkestan 1903 : vol.1 / Page 132 (Color Image)

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[Photo] 73 A Drowned Valley in the Plain at the east end of Issik Kul, looking northeast.

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doi: 10.20676/00000177
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Ioó   EXPLORATIONS IN TURKESTAN.

a change from a glacial to a nonglacial epoch. It would be an aid in the elucidation of these changes if soundings could be made to determine how far the piedmont slopes continue their present declivity under the lake, and how far forward the valleys may be traced. This would be of especial importance in connection with the ruins that are found submerged in the lake, as mentioned below.

The only suggestion that we can make as to the date when the piedmont waste slopes were formed is based on the occurrence of the moraine, already described as standing a little forward from the mouth of a valley in the Kungei Ala-tau, north of Choktal post station, about 1,500 feet over the lake. If one may judge by the relation of moraines and aggraded waste slopes elsewhere in the world, it is probable

Fig. 73.—A Drowned Valley in the Plain at the east end of Issik Kul, looking northeast.

that the formation of this moraine and the aggradation of the piedmont slopes were contemporaneous ; hence the erosion of the valleys is of later date than the glacial epoch in which the moraine was found. Inasmuch as the moraine here referred to was the lowest one that may have been formed in its valley, it apparently belongs to the earliest of the glacial epochs established in Mr. Huntington's report.

It appears from the foregoing that the Issik Kul basin has long been suffering disturbance and receiving waste from the surrounding mountains, and that the latest disturbances of level have been greater at its eastern than at its western end. We have next to consider the more modern history of the lake itself.