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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

CHAPTER IV

NOTES ON INDIVIDUAL MAP SHEETS

NOTES ON SHEET No. 1 (TURUG-ART-DAWĀN)

The survey of the small area comprised in the S. E. corner of this sheet was made by R. B. Lāl Singh in 1907. Owing to the damage his theodolite had suffered on the way from Ak-su, no latitude observations of his were available for this area. His route from Kāshgar to the Turug-art-dawān (Sheet No. 1, C. 3) on the Russian frontier lying almost due north, it was considered advisable to accept for the position of the latter the coordinates obtained from the latest Russian surveys and to adjust the details shown in this sheet on that point and on the accepted position of Kāshgar (see below Notes on Sheet No. 2). The position of the Turug-

art pass on the surveyor's plane-table, as indicated by Sheet No. 1 of the 1906-08 Map, lies about 4 minutes of lat. to the south and circ. 4 minutes of long. to the west of that shown by the Russian map.

The fact that the Turug-art-dawān is reached from Kāshgar by a road which shortly before 1907 had been made practicable for country carts at the instance of the Russian authorities, sufficiently indicates the comparatively easy character of the ground over which this route along the Chakmak valley leads up to the T'ien-shan water-shed.

NOTES ON SHEET No. 2 (KĀSHGAR, MUZ-TĀGH-ATĀ)

The area shown by this sheet comprises a considerable portion of the great meridional range connecting the westernmost K'un-lun with the T'ien-shan in the north and forming the eastern rim of the Pāmir region. In it appears also the extreme north-western corner of the Tārim basin proper, occupied by the large oasis of Kāshgar and the much smaller ones of Ōpal and Tāsh-malik.

The routes surveyed on the first journey led along the western slopes of the meridional range, usually known after its most prominent peak as that of Muz-tāgh-atā, as far as the great defile of Gez-dara (C.3) and then through this to Tāsh-malik and Kāshgar. The surveys of 1906-08 falling within this sheet were confined to the ground in its south-eastern and north-eastern corners. Those of 1913-15 were of greater extent and were carried not only through the main valleys receiving the drainage from the eastern flanks of the Muz-tāgh-atā massif, but also along both sides of the northern portion of the range, where it approaches the T'ien-shan and gives rise to the main feeders of the Kāshgar river.

For the delineation of the Muz-tāgh-atā range, between the approximate latitudes of 38° and 39°, and of the great valleys

which flank its western slopes, a considerable number of triangulated points were available. These were derived mainly from the triangulation work of 1900, analyzed in sections B, C of Major Mason's Appendix A. In addition, certain points on the main range fixed by the operations of the Pāmir Boundary Commission and Captain Deasy could also be utilized. The extension of R. S. Rām Singh's triangulation to Tāsh-malik (D.2) permitted the course of the Gez-dara, or valley of the Yamān-yār river, to be accurately shown on the map right down to where it debouches into the great plain of the Tārim basin.

Besides the triangulation results just referred to, the position accepted for the 'old town' of Kāshgar and those for Yār-kand and certain other places in the adjoining sheets Nos. 1, 3, 5 were used for the adjustment of the plane-table surveys embodied in this sheet. The value assigned to Kāshgar, lat. 39° 28′ 45″, long. 75° 58′, is that hitherto adopted by the Survey of India from the mean of numerous observations by successive expeditions. It deserves, however, to be noted that the longitude value which wireless observation on Sir F. De Filippi's expedition furnished for a point close to Chini-bāgh, the British Consulate