Report of a Mission to Yarkund in 1873 : vol.1 / Page 60 (Color Image)

0060	Report of a Mission to Yarkund in 1873 : vol.1

the projecting horns of the crescent to the plain, but in the arc of the crescent itself the
drop was very sudden, as shown in this diagram :—

The wind blowing from N. drives the loose sand up to S., beyond which it topples
over and passes down the slope out of its further action. And a continuance of this process,
without changing the form, is always shifting its particles from the direction of N. to
that of S., and thus advancing the sand across the plain.

From some partially buried buildings we examined at this place, and from the data fur-
nished to us regarding the period of their construction, and the distance of the sand dunes at
the time, we calculated that these sands were advancing over the plain between S. and
S.E. at the rate of about a foot a year or rather more at this spot. But from similar
data regarding a half submerged post-house, eight miles off to the south, we calculated the
rate of advance at fully three feet a year at that spot. This post-house occupied the summit
of a low mound on the plain (the surface of which here presented a wide shallow hollow
encrusted with salines and covered with reeds, as appeared in the intervals between the suc-
cessive rows of sand waves) which had a very distinct slope towards a great drainage gully
some few miles further to the south ; and this inclination of the ground may account for the
more rapid rate of advance at this spot, though the varying force of the wind would not be
without its aiding effects.

From these instances it may be concluded that the rate of advance of these moving sands
is a varying measure dependent on the velocity of the wind and the nature of the surface ;
and that under any circumstances the process is a gradual one. Consequently it may be
assumed that the burial under them of the cities of Lob and Katak—though a sudden catas-
trophe for individual houses as they successively became overwhelmed—was on the whole a slow
process extending over many years, and thus afforded the inhabitants ample leisure to abandon
their doomed abodes and migrate to safer localities.

This view is supported by an incidental reference to a whirlwind of sand which sub-
merged a considerable portion of the city of Katak about the middle of the 14th century in
the Táríkhi Rashídí of Mirzá Hydar. In his account of this storm he describes the sand as
falling from the sky as does a shower of rain ; and probably it was blown off the overtower-
ing sand dunes which in their progressive advance had encroached upon the outer walls of the
city. But beyond recording the flight of two or three individuals from the limited area of
this convulsion of nature he does not mention any general exodus of the population, though
he alludes to the circumstance of their having been frequently warned to depart from the city
doomed to destruction. And this indicates that the impending calamity was foreseen and its
nature understood.

Wandering shepherds and huntsmen who now frequent the vicinity of these buried cities
report that the houses and domes and minarets of Katak are seen to reappear from under the
sands in all their pristine perfection ; and they tell marvellous tales of the undisturbed repose
and uninjured state of their furniture and contents ; and they even describe the skeleton forms
of the occupants as still retaining the exact positions they happened to be in at the time they
were overwhelmed, by the sudden fall and subsidence of some great encroaching sand dune
most probably, the regular form of whose loose agglomeration of particles was broken by the
obstruction to its symmetrical advance offered by the house it buried in its own dissolution
and subsidence. This, I may here note, is easily understood from what we witnessed at Kúm
Sháhidán. Here we saw a sand wave of three contiguous semilunes which in its advance
across the plain had come upon the court wall of a tenement in the way of its progress.
One of the side semilunes which overtopped the wall by five or six feet had broken over its

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National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

Citation Information

OCR Text

National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books