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0363 Southern Tibet : vol.7
南チベット : vol.7
Southern Tibet : vol.7 / 363 ページ(カラー画像)

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doi: 10.20676/00000263
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CHAPTER XXVII.

GODWIN-AUSTEN.

In 1858 Sir R. MURCHISON reminded the members of the Royal Geographical
Society that the gigantic peaks which enclose the lofty plateau of Tibet, and separate
India from Turkestan, had generally been considered by British geographers as
constituting one vast mass, or sea of mountains.¹ He regards the mountains as
being concentrated in the west, in a knot or group around the Hindu-kush, from
where they expand to the east and south in the shape of a fan. Farther north
and beyond the plateau of Tibet is a band of parallel altitudes, also starting from
the same western knot and proceeding southeastwards. — This is the Mus-tagh
which farther east »acquires the synonym of Karakorum. This last range, which,
still further to the east, is the Kailas. . . . has for some years been marked on maps
as the watershed of the mountain region which separates the drainage of India from
that of Turkistan and China.» This opinion of the watershed was the dominating
one in these days.

It is curious that Murchison could say of this axis or water-parting: »the same
chain was passed over in its far eastern prolongation by . . . . HUC and GABET, though,
unfortunately, they have given us no materials by which we can define its orographical
features». How could he know that Huc crossed the same chain which THOMSON
had reached in the Kara-korum Pass? It was a theory which happened to be correct,
and it proved that MURCHISON was a very clear-sighted man.

In this address MURCHISON gives a rather good résumé of what was known
of these regions in 1858. He ascertained that already in 1838, Dr. FALCONER
crossed the mountains of Iskardo, and followed up one of the sources of the Indus
by the valley of the river Braldo to about 36° N. lat., on the glacier which hangs
upon the southern face of the Muz-tagh or Kara-korum. Murchison, in the same
address, calls the Himalayan regions: »that part of Asia to which, as Englishmen,
we attach deep interest, as constituting the northern frontier of our Indian possessions.