GEOGRAPHICAL PROGRESS. 



277 



ney cost me the lives of two men and of almost 

 all my animals. The baggage animals were yaks, 

 which were everywhere placed at my service by 

 command of the Dalai-Lama. The results of this 

 last journey in Tibet are recorded on a map of 

 370 sheets. 



" In April I broke up from Leh, and crossing 

 the Karakorum pass, went down to Yarkand; 

 thence traveling via Kashgar and the Caspian 

 Sea, I returned to Stockholm, where 1 arrived on 

 June 27, 1902. The successful issue of this jour- 

 ney, which lasted altogether three years and 

 three days, was in great part owing to the cir- 

 cumstance that his Majesty the Emperor of Rus- 

 sia most graciously appointed an escort of four 

 Cossacks to attend upon me throughout. Than 

 these I have never had more honest, more capa- 

 ble, or braver men in my service. 



" My first journey of 1893-'97 has been regard- 

 ed as marking an advance in the knowledge of 

 the geography of central Asia. The last jour- 

 ney of 1899-1902 has yielded results three times as 

 rich as those of the former journey, and in the 

 course of it I have been enabled to lift the veil 

 which for a thousand years had hidden vast 

 stretches of the mountainous and desert regions 

 of the heart of Asia. 



"My cartographical material extends to 1,149 

 sheets, and if these were arranged end to end in 

 a long row they would stretch over a distance 

 of 1,000 feet. A complete meteorological journal 

 was kept without interruption throughout, in 

 part during my expeditions, in part also and 

 simultaneously in my principal fixed camps, 

 where a barograph and a thermograph were in 

 constant operation. The abundant materials 

 thus gathered in are now being worked up by Dr. 

 Nils Ekholm. I took also over 2,000 photo- 

 graphs, using for this purpose an English camera 

 and English-made plates, and the results leave 

 nothing to be desired. Anatomical collections of 

 the higher animals were made, including aquatic 

 animals in spirits, and a herbarium was brought 

 together. The geological profiles of Tibet will be 

 illustrated by some 700 rock specimens collected 

 in that region. I have also brought home a num- 

 ber of archeological treasures from the ruins we 

 discovered in the desert, among them several ob- 

 jects of extraordinary interest, and I made fur- 

 ther a great quantity of sketches, diagrams, and 

 drawings to illustrate various features apper- 

 taining to the provinces of physical geography." 



Dr. W. H. Workman and Mrs. Workman, on a 

 third expedition among the higher Karakoram 

 mountains, devoted their attention chiefly to the 

 Clfogo Lungma glacier; they examined also three 

 large tributary terminal glaciers. The upper part 

 of the Chogo Lungma glacier has not heretofore 

 been explored, and the map was found to be wholly 

 incorrect. The glacier takes its rise in a steep 

 snow wall, or coll, about 20,000 feet in altitude, 

 which connects two lofty peaks, one of which is 

 fixed by the Indian survey at 24,486 feet. The 

 other seemed to be little lower. Several other 



Eeaks nearly as high send down large glaciers to 

 elp form the Chogo Lungma. One of the tribu- 

 tary glaciers brought the explorers under the 

 northern flank of Mount Haramosh, which is 

 24,285 feet high, to a broad snow pass, at a height 

 of 17,500 feet, from which another glacier plunges 

 sharply down to the west into a deep valley, 

 whence, by crossing a lower ridge at 15,000 feet, 

 Gilgit can be reached. The surface of the great 

 glacier is irregular, and it is in many places 

 seamed by crevasses. The tributary glaciers are 

 nearly all broken at different places in their 

 course by impassable ice-falls. At the entrance 



of the Haramosh arm a deep depression in the 

 surface is occupied by a large lake. 



In a paper on explorations in Chinese Turkes- 

 tan, read before the Royal Geographical Society, 

 Dr. M. A. Stein said that the idea of explorations 

 about Khotan was suggested by the discoveries of 

 M. de Rhins, the French explorer, and Dr. Sven 

 Hedin's march of 1895, which was first made 

 known in 1898. With the help of the Indian Gov- 

 ernment Dr. Stein was enabled to set out in April 

 1900, and reached the capital of the Hunza chief 

 in June. In that city the carved woodwork ex- 

 hibited the features of old Indian decoration, 

 while in the Mir's residence the furniture and 

 fittings were Chinese in type. Arriving at Tash- 

 kurghan, Dr. Stein was enabled to prove the iden- 

 tity of the territory of Kir-p'an-to with the mod- 

 ern Sarikol. A fresh start was made from Kash- 

 gar in September, and Khotan was reached in 

 October. From this point a survey was made of 

 the Yurung-kash flowing between ranges of lofty 

 peaks 23,000 feet high and connected with cer- 

 tain recognized peaks in the Indian triangula- 

 tion. After beginning excavations in December 

 the first find of importance was some leaves of 

 manuscript in Sanskrit, which might be assigned 

 to the sixth century. In addition, there were 

 documents in non-Indian characters which rep- 

 resented the indigenous tongue of Khotan. The 

 discovery of Chinese writings dated 778-787, as 

 well as coins of about 720, seem to show that 

 Dandan Uiliq was abandoned at the end of the 

 eighth century. The district was probably irri- 

 gated by canals bringing the hill water to the 

 desert, and no adequate cause could be assigned 

 for its desertion. An older town was discovered 

 in the desert north of Iman Jafar, where tablets 

 were unearthed bearing the ancient Indian script 

 Kharoshthi. The area over which ruins are scat- 

 tered is about 11 miles by 4, and the buildings 

 were constructed in a massive style of beams of 

 wood and plaster, which has served to keep the 

 tablets in a high state of preservation. There 

 were also pieces of pottery of great antiquarian 

 interest and notes in various writings. The 

 clay seals with which the tablets were fastened 

 show the influence of Western art and include 

 figures of Pallas Athene, Eros, and portraits with 

 classical modeling and barbarian features. The 

 discoveries corroborate the evidence of early Chi- 

 nese explorers that these lands were colonized by 

 immigrants from the Punjab about 200 B. c. This 

 district must have been deserted before the fourth 

 century, as there were no signs of writing on 

 paper, which became common in Turkestan at 

 that date." 



In the autumn of 1899 Mr. Douglas W. Fresh- 

 field with several companions made a journey to 

 the Himalayas to examine the glaciers of Kang- 

 chenjunga. The journey occupied in all seven 

 weeks, during which the party ascended and de- 

 scended 75,000 feet, or 14 miles up and 14 miles 

 down. They were twenty-four days between La- 

 chen and Khunza without meeting inhabitants, 

 twenty days without seeing trees, and they were 

 wholly dependent on the provisions they carried 

 with them, except for a few contributions from 

 their sportsmen. Following is a report of his 

 description of the glaciers: "He reminded his 

 audience that Kangchenjunga was a moun- 

 tain 28.156 feet high. It was therefore the 

 third highest measured mountain on the face 

 of the globe, and was nearly 400 miles north 

 of Calcutta. It formed the culminating point of 

 a group which rose on the confines of Tibet, 

 Nepal, and Sikkim. The Kangchenjunga group 

 was completely cut off by the Khosi valley on 



