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

texts has become familiar to geographers—contain moderately fresh water, at least in the parts
near the entrance of the Tārim, have given rise to the much-discussed 'Lop-nōr question',
complicated perhaps quite as much as elucidated by the controversial literature which since
the days of Prejevalsky and Richthofen has accumulated over it in the absence of adequate
surveys. ⁴

Beyond the northern edge of those marshes, with their fringe of dried-up salt lagoons
filled at times by exceptional floods of the Tārim, there extends an area
Ancient delta of
Kuruk-daryā. of bare clay overrun by light sand and undergoing excessive wind-
erosion. It is crossed by a series of well-marked dry river-beds, and
of these our surveys have proved that they represent the southern portion of an ancient delta
formed by the dried-up 'Kuruk-daryā', which during the first centuries before and after Christ
carried the waters of the Konche-daryā (together, perhaps, with some addition from northern
tributaries of the Tārim, like the Inchike-daryā) to the then-occupied territory of Lou-lan. ⁵

The erosive action of wind-driven sand has covered the dried-up delta and the whole
area of that ancient territory as far as the foot of the Kuruk-tāgh with
Wind-eroded desert of
Lou-lan. an endless succession of 'yārdangs', steep ridges carved out of the
alluvial clay and separated by parallel trenches. All lie in the direction
of the prevailing north-east winds which 'aspiration' draws down from the plateaus of the Kuruk-
tāgh and southern Mongolia into the Lop depression during great portions of the year. ⁶ Abun-
dant archæological evidence, brought to light at various ancient sites of Lou-lan, makes it certain
that the waters carried by the Kuruk-daryā reached this once habitable territory and the delta
to the south and east until the first half of the fourth century A.D. At that time the early
Chinese route leading from Tun-huang through the Lou-lan area and thence along the Kuruk-
daryā to the northern belt of oases in the Tārim basin was finally abandoned, and the territory
itself became an arid and lifeless wilderness. ⁷

Eastwards the ancient delta ends on the shores of the prehistoric sea bed. The ancient
Chinese trade and military route which had crossed this, as we know
Ancient route across
dried-up sea bed. from descriptions in Chinese historical records, was traced by me to
where the difficult salt-encrusted expanse is narrowest. ⁸ Brief reference
must suffice here to the curious topographical features which the ground near these shores
presents in the shape of high 'Mesas' of earlier lacustrine formation and of strings of salt-
coated 'Yārdangs'. The ancient Chinese accounts, ever exact in topographical details,
duly refer to them. ⁹

The opposite shore of the sea-bed lies along the foot of the Kuruk-tāgh. Further
south we find a long bay extending to the north-east. It occupies a
Bay joining Su-lo-ho
basin. broad valley-like depression which lies between the southernmost hill
range of the Kuruk-tāgh and a line of high sand-ridges lining the foot