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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

teristic of the great drainageless wastes of innermost Asia and of special interest to the
geographical student of their present and past. The limits of areas of absolutely bare drift-
sand, clay or gravel; of desert ground supporting vegetation of some kind; of irrigated and
hence cultivable ground which in these regions, under the influence of peculiar factors, is
subject to comparatively rapid changes, and similar features of importance, all claimed
careful attention, only assured by prolonged observation and study and not ordinarily falling
within the Indian surveyor's training.

The record of local names along our common routes was another task invariably
effected by myself. For routes followed only by my assistants, I did
Record of local names. my best to check and correct the record of local names brought back
by them through the independent examination of natives acquainted
with the ground. The methods used for a strictly phonetic record of all Turkistān local
names and for their systematic transcription, as well as for the transliteration of Chinese
names necessarily recorded on a different basis, will be fully explained below in the chapter
dealing with the preparation of the present maps.

SECTION II.—FIRST EXPEDITION, 1900-01

After these general observations I may now proceed to a summary record of the
survey operations carried out on each successive journey. For those of 1900-01 Colonel
St. George Gore, R. E., late Surveyor General of India, had kindly provided the help of
Sub-Surveyor Babu (now Rai Sāhib) Rām Singh, previously employed on the last of
Captain Deasy's expeditions, together with the necessary equipment of surveying instruments
and a grant of Rs 2000 to cover additional expenses. After reaching the westernmost
border of Chinese Turkistān from Hunza over the Kilik pass, survey work was commenced
at the head of the Tāghdum-bāsh Pamir by the close of June 1900.

Here as throughout our travels in the mountains I endeavoured to supplement it, as
far as my limited time permitted, by photogrammetric work with a
Photogrammetric work. Bridges-Lee photo-theodolite kindly lent by the Indian Meteorological
Department. A large selection of the mountain panoramas taken with
it on the Pāmirs and in the K'un-lun range south of Khotan has been published by the
Royal Geographical Society;¹ and though the ground west of the Muz-tāgh-atā massif is
the only area which has been actually mapped from them, these photographic records have
subsequently proved more than once of great value in clearing up points of topographical
interest, besides serving other geographical purposes.

From the Chinese-Afghān border on the Wakhjir pass where it overlooks the glacier
sources of the main Oxus headwaters, the survey extended through the
Survey of Sarikol. whole length of the main Sarikol valley to the great eastward bend
of the Zarafshān river below Tāsh-kurghān.² Triangulation was
started at the head of the Tāghdum-bāsh with the help of points supplied by the surveys of
the Pāmir Boundary Commission and Captain Deasy.³ It was subsequently extended for a
considerable distance to the north along the great meridional range which is crowned by the
ice peaks of the Muz-tāgh-atā and Shiwakte (or Kongur) massifs.⁴ A series of triangula-
tion stations fixed around the Little Kara-kul lake permitted the determination of several of
the most prominent peaks on that range.