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0056 On Ancient Central-Asian Tracks : vol.1
中央アジア踏査記 : vol.1
On Ancient Central-Asian Tracks : vol.1 / 56 ページ(カラー画像)

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doi: 10.20676/00000214
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cotton slightly terraced for irrigation; the same winding lanes
lined with white poplars and willows (Fig. 5); the same
little arbours or orchards inviting him with their shade and
their plentiful produce of European fruits.

Within the Tarim basin there still remains for us to visit
the terminal depression of Lop at its eastern end. The central
and geographically most striking feature of this depression
is the great salt-encrusted sea-bed which our surveys have
proved to extend for fully 160 miles from south-west to
north-east with a maximum width of some 90 miles. This
marks the position of a prehistoric salt sea which was fed
by the drainage of the Tarim basin when the climate of
Central Asia was moister. It already showed the same for-
bidding aspects as at present when the Chinese first became
acquainted with it more than two thousand years ago. But
in the now equally lifeless ground which adjoins this dried-
up sea on the north-west there can still be traced, in an area
of bare clay overrun by light drift-sand and now undergoing
excessive wind erosion, a series of well-marked dry river-beds.
Our surveys have proved that they belong to an ancient
delta formed by the dried-up Kuruk-darya, the 'Dry River'.
This during the first centuries before and after Christ carried
the waters of the Konche river which drains the Kara-shahr
valley, together with water from the Tarim, to the then par-
tially occupied territory of ancient Lou-lan. A remarkable
hydrographical change has, during the last few years,
brought back these waters again to a considerable portion
of the desolate waste.

Abundant archaeological evidence brought to light at
various ruined sites of Lou-lan since Dr. Hedin first dis-
covered one of them, makes it certain that the waters from