Southern Tibet : vol.7 / 631 ページ（カラー画像）

0631	Southern Tibet : vol.7
南チベット : vol.7

0631

Southern Tibet : vol.7

南チベット : vol.7

457

the G. T. S.'s maps prove to be wrong. I do not, however, feel convinced by Dr. LONG-
STAFF'S statement, especially after comparing his two maps: the one in SHERRING'S
book, and the one in the Alpine Journal. One would hardly believe that they are
meant to represent the same region. Judging from his maps, it is not clear where
he touched the southern side of Gurla. For from Takla-kot he went straight north
and then ascended the two east-west stretching ridges, which seem to start from the
point of culmination. The view must be very extensive from the higest point reached,
but glaciers may be hidden behind ridges and in deep-cut valleys. When he says:
»in fact, we were the first to see this side of the mountain», he seems to have for-
gotten Mr. T. W. WEBBER, Colonel EDMUND SMYTH, HENRY HODGSON and the Hon.
ROBERT DRUMMOND, who, exactly 40 years earlier, travelled close along the southern
side of Gurla on their way from Takla-kot to the east and over the Dak Eo Pass.
For, on Webber's map,¹ their route is only 9 miles straight south from the highest
summit of Gurla. Three years later Dr. Longstaff, however, remembered Webber's
expedition,² for he says: »Thence (from Taklakar) they crossed the lofty Dak Eo Pass
to the south of Gurla Mandhata, a route seldom traversed even by natives». I should
never have referred to Webber's map if Dr. Longstaff had not exhibited an almost
unlimited confidence in it.

At some places³ he criticises the Survey of India, but he does it »in no critical
mood». We must remember that exploring and surveying are two different things,
and the Survey's trignometrical observations on the Gurla are of greater value than
Dr. Longstaff's geological, glaciological and hypsometrical observations on the same
mountain. The surveyors adhere to mathematical and geometrical matters and
they have no occasion to pay attention to the physical phenomena of the earth's
crust. A triangulation may be scrupulously conscientious, every mountain peak may
have its absolutely correct height and position on the map, and still the country
between the peaks may be next to terra incognita — from the point of view of
physical science. But the one cannot do without the other. The map of triangulated
peaks will be a lifeless net of coordinates if an explanation of the topographical detail
is not given. The surveyor is not trained for that sort of thing, while the student
of physical geography will be hopelessly lost if he has not the assistance and the
framework given by the trained surveyors. The survey of the whole of the Hima-
laya and Western Kara-korum is a most brilliant work and no official Survey of any
state in the world can be compared with and none has had greater difficulties to over-
come than the Survey of India. The means at the disposal of the Survey have not

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