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0875 Southern Tibet : vol.7
Southern Tibet : vol.7 / Page 875 (Color Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000263
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ADDENDUM.

DE FILIPPI'S EXPEDITION ACROSS THE KARA-KORUM
MOUNTAINS.

In the years 1913 and 1914 Dr. FILIPPO DE FILIPPI carried out a very im-
portant expedition from Leh to Yarkand across the difficult mountain region between
the Himalaya and Kwen-lun, including the Kara-korum and Aghil Systems.¹ Since
Forsyth's Second Mission to Yarkand no expedition has entered this part of Asia so
completely organized and so well equipped as that of Dr. DE FILIPPI. From purely
scientific point of view it stands without rivals. In Forsyth's days nearly all the
ground covered meant important geographical discoveries. For the Italian expedition
the detailed physical, mathematical, geological and biological investigation remained
to be done, and the gratitude of the geographical world is indeed due to this ex-
pedition for the excellent way in which its gigantic program was carried through.
Dr. DE FILIPPI had no less than nine European officers and experts on different
branches of science under his command, viz., Mssr. ALESSIO, ABETTI, ALESSANDRI,
VENTURI-GINORI, SPRANGER, MARINELLI, DAINELLI, ANTILLI, and Major WOOD,
well known from Ryder's expedition in the Tsangpo valley 1904.² He was also
accompanied by a guide, J. PETIGAX, and by native assistants of the Survey of India.

One of the most important items of the program »was the establishment of
a series of geographical stations for observations of gravity and magnetism, to stretch
in an unbroken chain across the vast and mountainous zone which separates India
from Central Asia, and to be carried on through Chinese Turkestan as far as Russian
Turkestan, thus uniting in one comprehensive system two pre-existing sets of gravi-
metric stations, namely, that of the Indian pre-Himalayan plains carried out by the
Trigonometrical Survey of Dehra Dun, and that of Russian Turkestan and the ad-
joining regions». Further the longitudes were determinated by means of wireless