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

The present publication is intended to furnish a record of the topographical surveys
accomplished in the course of the three expeditions which carried me from the northernmost
border of the Indian Empire on the Pāmirs through the whole length and breadth of Chinese
Turkistān, as comprised between the K'un-lun and T'ien-shan ranges, and thence into
westernmost China. These journeys, undertaken by me under the orders of the Government
of India, had archæological exploration for their primary object; but from the first I was
equally anxious also to use all possible opportunities for geographical work.
That I was able to realize this aim by means of systematic surveys over the whole of
the ground covered by these protracted travels,—an area extending in
Help of Survey of
India. its extreme limits from the 75th to the 102nd degree of longitude
and from the 35th to near the 44th degree of latitude,— is due mainly
to the generous help accorded by the Survey of India. It deputed with me experienced
Indian surveyors of proved ability and energy, provided instruments, equipment and funds
to meet the cost of their employment and, last but not least, compiled the results of our
surveys, which comprised continuous plane-table work by my assistants and myself as well
as, where conditions would permit, triangulation and astronomical observations. For the aid
thus given to my efforts I cannot feel too grateful.
On the return from my third expedition, early in 1916, Colonel Sir Sidney Burrard,
R.E., then Surveyor General, whose unfailing interest and experienced
Publication of new
maps. guidance had from the beginning greatly facilitated those labours,
approved the proposal made with the support of Colonel (now Sir) G. P.
Lenox-Conyngham, R.E., his successor as Superintendent, Trigonometrical Survey, that the
topographical results of that expedition should be published in a series of maps embodying
also the surveys of my previous Central-Asian journeys, though these had already received
cartographical record.
Thus the new maps have come to comprise a vast region of innermost Asia, well-defined
in its chief physical features and uniformly surveyed in accordance with the methods which
the Survey of India's accumulated experience has shown to be most suitable for 'reconnais-
sance survey' work. Within the limits of these maps appear unsurveyed and in many cases
wholly unexplored areas, a fact fully accounted for by the exceptional physical difficulties
of access to the great forbidding deserts and the high mountain ranges, almost equally desolate,
constituting the major portion of the ground. But no less striking than the extent of
uninhabitable wastes within this vast region is the uniformity which prevails in the physical
characteristics of its chief zones.
Wherever we travelled, whether in the barren mountain ranges which enclose the
Tārim basin, in the drainageless areas forming its continuation east-
Representation of
physical features. wards, through the great deserts of drift-sand or gravel which fill their
depressions for the most part, or in the narrow stretches of cultivable
ground to be met between them, it had been my constant endeavour to make our surveys
as careful and detailed a record of the prevailing physical features as limitations of scale,
available time, training, etc., would permit. It is, therefore, particularly gratifying to note
that improved methods of drawing and reproduction have allowed in the new maps a clearer
and fuller representation of that record than was possible in previous publications.