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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

when the surveys along the mountains were
effected, and for other reasons, no safe obser-
vations of the snow-line were available; the
adoption for it in this sheet of an approxi-
mate contour of 17,500 feet is, therefore,
conjectural.

Descriptive accounts of the routes of
1901 and 1906 which took me to and from the
sand-buried sites of ancient terminal oases
of the Niya and Endere rivers (B. 1, D. 1),
are given in Ruins of Khotan, pp. 320 sqq.,
388 sqq.; Desert Cathay, i. pp. 266 sqq.,
300 sqq. The important archaeological dis-
coveries made there raised numerous questions
regarding physical changes, mainly due to
desiccation, affecting the ground at those
sites. These questions and the points relating
to the historical geography of this region in
general have been fully discussed in Ancient
Khotan, i. pp. 382 sqq., 435 sqq.; Serindia, i.
pp. 241 sqq., 272 sqq., 286 sqq. For a brief
preliminary account of my third visit to the
Niya Site (the ancient Ching-chüeh of the
Chinese Annals), cf. Geograph. Journal,
xlviii. p. 115.

As in the adjoining sheet No. 14, three
well-marked zones can be distinguished
within this area. On the north we have
the drift-sands of the Taklamakān interrupt-
ed by the terminal courses of the Niya, Yār-
tungaz, and Endere rivers and the belts of
desert vegetation which are supported by
them.

The ground once occupied by two large
terminal oases of the first and last of those
rivers can no longer be reached by irrigation,
and the small patches of cultivation now

found near the present ends of those rivers
are ever threatened with extinction owing
to the vagaries of the dying river-courses.

Southward of these stretches the vast
glacis of piedmont gravel or detritus, some
thirty miles and more in width and utterly
barren, except on its northern edge. There
subsoil water, absorbed higher up from
smaller rivers, comes to light again in scanty
springs or supports scrubby jungle with
scattered wild poplar growth. The small
Niya oasis is the only agricultural settlement
to be found in this zone, and it, too, owes its
existence mainly to the needs of the gold-
miners' camps at Surghāk (B. 3) and else-
where along the foot of the mountains.

These rise as an unbroken snowy ram-
part as far east as the headwaters of the
Yār-tungaz and Endere rivers, and form part
of the northern main range of the K'un-lun.
Their valleys seem for the most part very
narrow and barren, and cultivation is re-
stricted to a string of small hamlets near
where the lesser streams debouch on to the
'Sai' glacis (A-D. 3).

Corrections. B. 3. The name Ken-köl
should be in black.

C. 2. Divide the river names thus:
Yār-tungaz, Ak-tāsh.

D. 1. Symbols of 'hard salt crust' to
be changed to those of 'hard salt-encrusted
clay'.

Omit the latitude observation symbol
at Endere Site.

C.3. The triangulated point Pk. 6,60r,
with height 12,200, to be inserted at lat.
36° 35′ 35″ long. 83° 0′ 34″.

Astronomically observed latitudes.
1900-01. Ovraz-langar, Camp 87 (station quarters; A. 3) ... 36° 53′ 12″
Niya-bāzār, Camp 88 (near south end of village; B. 2) ... 37° 4′ 13″
Imām-Jāfar-Sādik-mazār, Camp 91 (inner court of pilgrims'
Sarai; B. 1) ... ... ... 37° 44′ 16″
Niya Site, Camp 93 (close to ruined Stūpa; B. 1) ... 37° 58′ 44″
1906-08. Kara-bulak, Camp 72 (A. 3) ... ... 36° 30′ 53″
Malghun, Camp 75 (within hamlet; A. 3) ... 36° 36′ 21″
Kuchkach-bulaki (B. 3) ... ... ... 36° 36′ 29″

NOTES ON SHEET No. 20 (KARA-DAWĀN, KARA-SHAHR RIVER)

The mapped area in this sheet shows a
small portion of the wide valley of the Kara-
shahr river or Khaidu-gol near its eastern
end, together with a part of the outer range
of the T'ien-shan which divides it from the

Tārim basin. Most of the latter range was
surveyed from the route followed in 1915 by
R. B. Lal Singh along its southern foot and
shown in Sheet No. 21. The south-eastern
corner of the sheet was surveyed in connec-