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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

further south towards Marāl-bāshi in that
of 1915. On both occasions the atmosphe-
ric conditions of the season seriously inter-
fered with astronomical observations as well
as with distant views towards the mountains.
This, together with the damage suffered by
R.B. Lāl Singh's theodolite on the former
journey, explains why only a single latitude
observation of our own (that for Kelpin,
B.3) falls within this sheet.

Fortunately Mr. C. Clementi's astrono-
mical work of 1907 along the Kāshgar-Ak-
su highroad met this want by supplying
latitudes and chronometric values of longi-
tude for Ak-su (Yangi-shahr) and for several
of the roadside stations between that place
and Marāl-bāshi. ³ The longitude thus
determined for Ak-su, 79° 55′ 25″, shifts the
position accepted in the Russian Trans-
frontier map and shown also in Dr. Hassen-
stein's map accompanying Dr. Hedin's
Reisen in Zentral-Asien, 1900, by some 29
minutes to the west, while the difference in
the same sense from the longitude deduced
from our plane-table traverses of 1908, as
shown in Sheet No. 23 of the Serindia map,
is only about 8 minutes. ⁴ The difference in
latitude of the position in the latter from
that of Mr. Clementi (41° 7′ 57″) is less
than 6 minutes to the south. The routes
passing through Uch-Turfān and Kelpin were
checked by the accepted positions of Ak-su,
Kāshgar and Marāl-bāshi, use being made
also of the latitudes observed at Kelpin and
Tunguzluk (Sheet No. 4. C. 4).

A descriptive account of the route sur-
veyed by me from Ak-su to Uch-Turfān
Astronomically observed latitude.
1913-15. Kelpin, Camp 342 (Bēg's house, E. of Bāzār; B. 3) ... ... 40° 31′ 23″

NOTES ON SHEET No. 8 (MARĀL-BĀSHI)

The surveyed area of this sheet is con-
fined to the Marāl-bāshi district and the
adjacent parts of the Yārkand river course
and the Taklamakān desert to the south-east.
The route followed in 1908 lay mainly along
the high road from Tumshuk towards Yār-
kand; to the ground then surveyed much

and thence through the previously unexplored
barren outer ranges of Kelpin to the desert
south, is given in Desert Cathay, ii. pp. 423
sqq. The general physical conditions of the
region from Ak-su to Kelpin and Marāl-
bāshi have been summarily discussed, along
with its historical topography, in Serindia,
iii. pp. 1296 sqq.

The large if imperfectly cultivated areas
of Ak-su and Uch-Turfān owe their occupa-
tion to the abundant irrigation supplied by
the Taushkan ⁵ and Kum-arik rivers which
unite close to the 'Yangi-shahr' or Chinese
town of Ak-su. Both are fed by portions
of the T'ien-shan carrying perpetual snow
and in their higher (unsurveyed) valleys
affording ample grazing. The outer ranges
to the south of the Taushkan river are on
the other hand extremely arid, and the few
small settlements at their foot wholly depen-
dent on subsoil drainage.

South of those ranges extends a wide
desert plain, partly bare clay or gravel but
mainly covered with sand from alluvial de-
posits; in this plain, percolation from the Yār-
kand and Kāshgar rivers aided by occasional
inundation maintains abundant jungle vege-
tation. The winding Kara-köl bed, together
with other branches (C, D. 4) filled at times
of flood, carries the water of the dying Kāsh-
gar-daryā occasionally as far as the southern
end of Ak-su cultivation. The curious wind-
eroded low hill-chains (A, B. 4) striking
across this desert plain at right angles to the
T'ien-shan axis have been referred to already
above; see p. 26.

was added both in the south and north by
the work of 1913 and 1915.

Owing to Muhammad Yakūb's astrono-
mical observations having proved unreliable
here as elsewhere, no positions fixed in
latitude were available besides those recorded
by previous travellers. Among these Mr.