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| 0150 |
The heart of a continent : vol.1 |
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run down from their summits till they join the corresponding
sloping plains of a parallel range or merge in the broad
desert—had long puzzled me. But here, among the lower
ridge of the Altai Mountains, I had better opportunities of
examining the rocks, and it seems to me that the following
is the true cause of the formation of these sloping plains.
The hills in the Gobi, as has been noted several times, are
perfectly bare, and in such an extremely dry climate, exposed
to the icy cold winds of winter and the fierce rays of the
summer sun, and unprotected by one atom of soil, the rocks
first decompose, and then crumble away to a remarkable
extent, and there being no rainfall sufficient to wash away the
débris, the lower features of a range gradually get covered with
a mass of débris falling from the upper portions, and in the
course of time a uniform slope is created, often thirty or forty
miles in length, and it is only for a few hundred feet at the
top that the original jagged rocky outline is seen.
In the smaller features the process of decomposition could
be seen actually going on. The rocks are all cracked and
give way at a touch,* while occasionally masses spontaneously
detach themselves. The general effect, then, that is being
produced on these mountains by the combined action of the
heat of the sun and the winter frosts, is the same as would be
produced by heat upon a rugged mass of ice. In the course
of time (for the one, a few million years—for the other, a few
minutes) both would be modified into round smooth masses.
From Ula-khutun we passed through some low hills, and
on the march came across the horn of an Ovis argali. It
was lying in the middle of the path. On measuring it, I
found it was fifty inches round the curve and seventeen
inches in circumference at base—an immense horn. The
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