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

basin (A. 4) the appearance of belts of drift-
sand and wind-eroded clay terraces, features
common to all ancient lacustrine depressions
further west, may be noted.

A stony plateau separates this basin from
the ill-defined valley containing the end of
the Pei-ta-ho above its junction with the
Kan-chou river. The narrow but long-
stretched cultivation areas of Chin-t'a and

Astronomically observed latitudes.
1913-15. Camp 130, N.E. edge of Hua-hai-tzu basin (A. 4) ... 40° 20′ 58″
Mao-mei, Camp 138 (temple outside S.E. corner of town walls;
D. 4) ... ... ... ... 40° 17′ 49″
Shuang-ch'êng-tzu, Camp 139 (temple, 1 mile north of village;
D. 4) ... ... ... ... 40° 24′ 50″
Mou-wo, Camp 204 (near N. coal pits; B. 3) ... ... 40° 42′ 40″

NOTES ON SHEET No. 43 (SU-CHOU)

The surveys recorded in this sheet
belong for the most part to the second ex-
pedition, but were to a considerable extent
supplemented in the portions lying along
the northern edge of the sheet and in its
easternmost section by work done in 1914.
The extensive routes surveyed on the second
journey all closed upon their starting point,
Su-chou (B.1), and the position adopted for
this important city served as a pivot for the
compilation of the sheet. The latitude of
39° 45′ shown for it is derived from closely
concordant astronomical observations made
on both journeys at the temple of Chin-
ch'üan outside the eastern city gate. The
longitude of 98° 33′ now adopted represents
the mean between Mr. Clementi's chrono-
metrical value (98° 26′ 56·3″) and the value
previously accepted by the Survey of India.
It differs but slightly from the longitude
assigned to Su-chou in Sheet No. 88 of the
1906-08 map in Serindia. The routes lead-
ing to Su-chou from the west and south-east
have been adjusted on the accepted positions
of An-hsi and Kan-chou, respectively (see
Notes on Sheets Nos. 38, 46).

The southern portion of the sheet com-
prises an extensive mountain area occupied
by the four main ranges of the Central Nan-
shan. Its delineation on the plane-table
was greatly facilitated by the distant views
gained from above the high passes over
which the three northernmost of these ranges
were crossed, as well as by the open charac-
ter of the ground in the wide valleys which
separate them. The topography of the high

Mao-mei share the physical features charac-
teristic of all terminal oases in the Tārim
basin. The high dune ridges which stretch
parallel to the Kan-chou river course on the
east (D. 4), help to illustrate this similarity
of aspect on the map.

Corrections. C. 4. For T'o-tun (Camp
235a) read T'ou-tun.

spurs which descend from the Richthofen
Range to the east of the Ma-yang-ho valley
(C, D. 2, 3), received important additions by
the survey made by R. B. Lāl Singh in
1915 from the side of the Li-yüan-ho.

The approximate elevation of 15,500
feet, adopted for the snow-line in the portions
of the Central Nan-shan falling within this
sheet, is derived from what I observed when
crossing its passes in August, 1907, and the
photographic panoramas then taken support
it.

For a fairly detailed descriptive account
of the ground visited in 1907 between the
plateau at the north foot of the Richthofen
Range and the high mountain chain over-
looking the headwaters of the Su-lo-ho,
Kan-chou and Ta-t'ung rivers from the
south, see Desert Cathay, ii. pp. 297 sqq.;
for that of the famous defile of Chia-yü-
kuan, the westernmost 'Gate' of China
'within the Wall', and of the Su-chou oasis
east of it, see ibid. ii. pp. 273 sqq. The
historical topography of the 'passage land',
which this western end of the mediæval
'Great Wall' was intended to close, and that
of the mountain region which adjoins on the
south, has been discussed in Serindia, iii. pp.
1116 sqq., 1124 sqq. Brief references to
the ground visited by me north of the Chinese
high road passing from Kan-chou to Su-chou
will be found in Geograph. Journal, xlviii.
pp. 196, 200.

The area shown by this sheet aptly
illustrates the three main regions into which
the ground between the Central Nan-shan