GEOGRAPHICAL PROGRESS AND DISCOVERY. 



will furnish broad for the whole commercial 

 u orld. 



v. In Central Asia the important ex- 

 pedition <>t' Si vertzov has brought to light the 

 principal features of the Patnir and revealed its 

 relations to the Thian-shan range. The party 

 stuned from Osh. While the topographers 

 were taking down the route to the Kara-kul 

 and the outline of its basin, Severtzov studied 

 the geological characters of the Pamir and the 

 Thian-shuu at the sources of the Kashgar 

 Darya. Meeting again at the Kara-kul, they 

 started out on an unexplored route, lying be- 

 tween Forsyth's and Kostenko's, following up 

 the northern Ak-baital, and crossing a pass 

 15,000 feet high to the southern Ak-baital River, 

 which they descended to its confluence with 

 the Ak-su. An excursion into the unexplored 

 Ran-kttl Pamir disclosed the true nature of the 

 disputed orography of the east Pamir. It does 

 not consist in a ridge of mountains, as Hay- 

 ward supposed ; there is also no abysmal wall, 

 as Fedschenko reported, but a broad mountain 

 system. The peaks of the Kysyl-yart, from 

 21,000 to 25,000 feet in altitude, are in separate 

 groups of snow-covered mountains, between 

 which extends the valley of the Little Kara-kul 

 with a diameter of about 50 kilometres, which 

 is formed by a very complex system of lower 

 mountains 14,000 to 15,000 feet in height. Af- 

 ter fixing an astronomical point on the Ran- 

 kul, and returning to the Ak-baital, which they 

 followed down to the Ak-su, they sought the 

 unknown region of the Alitshur Pamir by way 

 of the Kara-su and the pass of Naisa-tush, 14,- 

 000 feet high. They crossed the Alitshur to 

 the Jashil-kul River, which intersects it, dis- 

 covering in its eastern part a group of lakes. 

 Their provisions failing, they were forced to 

 return to the Kara-kul. This lake lies in an 

 expanded portion of a very long valley, whoso 

 eastern opening leads into the valley of the 

 Kak-shai River, and which opens at its west 

 end into that of the Ak-su. Both of the out- 

 lets which in former ages connected with these 

 rivers are now dried up ; although in times of 

 high flood, but not every year, an overflow still 

 takes place by the southwestern outlet into 

 the Kudara, a confluent of the Murgab. The 

 scientific observations and collections made on 

 this expedition were much more extended than 

 those of its predecessors. The region between 

 the Pamir and the Thian-shan was also ex- 

 plored. The geological material collected suf- 

 fices for working up the whole geology of the 

 Pamir. Many specimens of about 1,000 differ- 

 ent species of plants were gathered. The zoo- 

 logical collection was particularly complete, in- 

 creasing the fauna of the Pamir from 10 to 60 

 species of mammals, from 4 to 20 species of 

 fish, and from 110 to 350 species of birds. 



One of the most interesting questions of 

 Asiatic geography has advanced another step 

 toward its final solution through the enterprise 

 of one of the native Indian surveyors employed 

 in the British geodetical operations in South- 



ern Asia. The identity of the Sanpoo, or 

 great river of Thibet, with the Brahmnpootra, 

 has been accepted by inoHt geographer 

 it has never been established, and the cou'r^e 

 of the Sanpoo through the mountains, where 

 it makes a curve from an easterly to a south- 

 westerly course as laid down on the maps, la 

 purely conjectural. Klaproth published an 

 hypothesis that the Irrawaddy instead of the 

 Brahmapootra was the continuation of the 

 Sanpoo, and others have sought to identify 

 the latter with the Subansiri. The explora- 

 tion of the Indian topographer bus practically 

 settled this much-debated question, and leaves 

 no room for doubt that the Sanpoo emerges 

 under the name of the Dihong, as the Brahma- 

 pootra is called where it issues from the moun- 

 tains into the Assam Valley. The energetic 

 native explorer was instructed by Lieutenant 

 Harman to go to Chetang, whose position was 

 determined by the pundit Nain Sing in 1875, 

 und explore the Sanpoo downward as far as he 

 could. On the north bank he followed the 

 river a distance of about 30 miles to a point 

 where a small river called the Mikchoo flows 

 into it from the northeast. He was obliged to 

 make a detour up the valley of this stream and 

 over the Lung-la Pass in the range of moun- 

 tains which forms the eastern boundary of the 

 Lhassa basin, and then down a valley in which 

 he passed two monasteries to the town of Gyat- 

 sa-jong, where he again struck the Sanpoo 

 at a distance of 20 miles from where he had 

 left it. Following the left bank for 30 miles, 

 he then crossed near Thak Nong-jong, not 

 far from which a river joins the Sanpoo from 

 the south. This latter, he learned, flows by a 

 town named Tsari, which is probabiy identical 

 with D'Anville's Chai. Nain Sing saw the 

 course of the river for 30 miles below Chetang, 

 which is to the southeast. A short distance be- 

 low Gyatsa-jong the course changes to due east. 

 After following it in that direction for about 

 50 miles, he found that it turned then to the 

 northeast, and flowed 80 miles in a northwest- 

 erly course, reaching its northernmost point in 

 about latitude 30 and longitude 94 E., about 

 12 miles from a town called Chamcar, doubt- 

 less the same as the Tchumca of D'Anville. 

 It here takes a sharp and sweeping turn and 

 flows in a southeasterly direction. He followed 

 it for 15 miles to a place called Gya-la Sindong, 

 where he was obliged to discontinue his ex- 

 plorations. He saw its course for a long dis- 

 tance beyond, to an opening in the mountains 

 through which it passed to the west of a high 



Eeak called Jung-la. The distance from Gya- 

 i Sindong, according to its position as de- 

 termined by the explorer, to the highest point 

 on the Dihong attained by Wilcox, is only 

 about 10() miles. The distance to which the 

 present exploration extends east of Chetang is 

 some 200 miles. The altitude of Gya-la Sin- 

 dong he determined to be 8,000 feet above the 

 level of the sea, showing a fall of 3,500 feet in 

 the 200 miles of its course from Chetang. The 



