Chap. IX] 



DESERTS 



621 



URGA (DESERT OF GOBI). 



47° 55' N., 106 45' E., 1,330 meters above sea-level. 



(From Zeitschr. d. osterr. Gesellsch.f. Meteorol., 1873, p. 108.) 



The cold of winter naturally causes the flora to be of a composition 

 esentially different from that in the southern desert district. The northern, 

 eastern, and south-eastern parts of the desert of Gobi have a somewhat 

 greater rainfall than the central and western parts. 



The Trans-Caspian desert (Figs. 352-355) is briefly characterized by 

 Radde * thus : — 



' Only a cloudless sky, bare mountains, rivers without mouths and 

 without water, clouds of dust, boundless shifting sand and lifeless saline- 

 tracts, were given to this land by Nature.' The sandy desert is rich in 

 dunes, which are partly free from vegetation and shifting, partly fixed by 

 low open shrubby growth. 



The desert of Gobi- (Figs. 356-358), extending over 4,260 kilometers 

 from the Pamirs to the Great Khingan, for the most part varies between 

 1,000 and 1,500 meters in altitude above the sea, but at individual points is 

 sometimes lower and sometimes higher. It is traversed by chains of moun- 

 tains, and subdivided into sections bearing special names. Several lakes, 

 some saline and others of fresh water, are scattered over its surface. Springs 



1 Radde, op. cit. 



2 Przhevalsky, II, p. 245. 



