230 Baron Humboldt on the Mmmtain-chains and 



sources of the Yenissei and Mount Tangnu. The direction of 

 the line of separation of the waters, between the affluents of the 

 Orkhon and those of the Aral-noor, lake of the steppe, and the 

 unfortunate practice of marking by high chains of mountains 

 where systems of streams separate, have occasioned this error. 

 If it be desired to retain on our maps the name of Great Altai, 

 it should be given to the succession of lofty mountains ranged 

 in a course directly opposite (parallel to the chain of the 

 Khangai*), or from the north-west to the south-east, between 

 the right bank of the Upper Irtish, and the Yeke- Aral-noor, 

 or Lake of the Great Isle, near Gobdo-Khoto. 



" There, consequently, to the south of the Narym and of the 

 Bukhtorma, which bounds what is called the Little Russian 

 Altai, was the primitive abode of the Turk tribes ; the place 

 where Dizabul, their grand khan, towards the close of the sixth 

 century, received an ambassador from the Emperor of Con- 

 stantinople. This gold-mountain of the Turks, the Kin-shan 

 of the Chinese, a name with the same signification, bore hereto- 

 fore also those of ETc-tag and ETctel, both of which probably 

 have an analogous meaning. It is said that more to the south, 

 under the 46th parallel, and almost in the meridian of Pijan 

 and Toorfan, a lofty peak is still called in Mongol Altdinniro, 

 ' summit of the Altai/ If some degrees farther to the south, 

 this Great Altai unites itself to the Naiman-ula mountains, we 

 there find a transverse ridge which, running from the north- 

 west to the south-east, joins the Russian Altai' to the Teen-shan, 

 northward of Barkoul and Hami f . This is not the place to 



• " Mount Khanggay-ula is to the north of the source of the Orkhon. Its 

 summits are lofty and considerable. This chain is a branching of the Altai", 

 which comes from the north-west : it extends to the eastward to the rivers 

 Orkhon and Tula with their affluents, and becomes the Kenteh of the 

 Khinggan. A branch of this chain separates to the west, and runs to the 

 north under the name of the Kuku-daban; it encompasses the Uppev Selengga . 

 and all its affluents, which take their origin in it, and then runs a distance of 

 1000 le into the Russian territory. The Orkhon, the Tamir, and their af- 

 fluents, have likewise their sources in this chain, which is probably the same 

 which the Cliinese distinguish by the name of Yang-jin-shan. — Klaproth. 



■f " The Chinese (in their imperial geography of China)., in tracing the direc- 

 tion of the Great Altai' from the north-west to the south-east, make it almost 

 re-unite itself to the Teen-shan, which corresponds exactly with what M. 

 de Humboldt states.— Klaproth. 



