270 



NATURE 



[April 28, .921 



The High Pamir. ^ 



THE term "Pamir," when strictly used, con- 

 notes the level floor of a wide-based moun- 

 tain-valley in the uplands that connect the Hindu- 

 Kush and Karakoram ranges to the south with 

 the Alai and Tianshan ranges to the north. On 

 its eastern side this tract rises rather abruptly 

 from Kashgar ; westward, it descends more gradu- 

 ally to Ferghana. 



While nearly horizontal from end to end, the 

 surface of such a valley-fioor is usually undulating, 

 and is almost always drained by a central stream 

 with a boulder-strewn bed which is depressed 

 somewhat below the level of the main valley-floor. 

 Often such streams widen into a lake or lakes with 

 low, bare banks ; in the case of one Pamir — the 

 Alichur — the lake is at the western end and has 

 mountainous shores. The rivers of the eastern 

 valleys flow towards the Kashgar plain ; the 

 western streams flow to join the Oxus. The valley- 

 floors are generally 12,000 to 14,000 ft. above sea- 

 level, often 5 miles wide, and sometimes exceed 

 50 miles in length. The slopes overlooking them 

 that have a western or southern exposure usually 

 have huge bare basal screes of talus, and are 

 steeper than the less barren slopes that look east 

 or north. Conflicting views have been advanced 

 as to the formation of these striking flat-floored 

 valleys. Whatever the true explanation may be, 

 they are now being steadily filled up as the result 

 of disintegration of the slopes on either side. 



The ranges which separate these valleys are 

 loftier in the eastern portion of this region than 

 elsewhere; one eastern peak, Mustagh-ata, is 

 27,500 ft. high. Some of the north-western peaks 

 exceed 23,000 ft. ; the south-western ranges are 

 only 17,000 to 20,000 ft. high. The latter extend 

 further west than the portion of the region marked 

 by the presence of flat valley-floors, the streams of 

 which, now flowing with more rapid descent, find 

 their way to the Oxus through narrow glens and 

 mountain-gorges. 



Ser Marco Polo, six hundred years ago, had 

 heard of this elevated region. He knew that the 

 word "Pamer" signifies a plain, but he appears 

 to have thought that there was in the region only 

 one great plain, "twelve days' journey in length." 

 Modern Russian writers also apply the name 

 "Pamir" to the whole of this upland tract. But 

 they regard, with justice, the ranges that separate 

 the various valley-floors as of most physio- 

 graphical consequence, and, therefore, include in 

 the Pamir that area in which the valleys between 

 these ranges are steep and narrow, as well as the 

 portion in which the valleys are flat and wide, 

 terming the former Low Pamir and the latter High 

 Pamir. English authors also extend the meaning 

 of the word "Pamir," but in another sense. As 

 used by us, the term connotes not only the floor 



■^ "The Second Danish Pamir Expedition. Conducted by Lieut. O. 

 Olufsen. Studies in the Vegetation of Pamir." By Ove Paulsen. 

 Pp. tx+132. (Copenhagen : Gyldendalske Boghandel, 1920.) 



NO. 2687, VOL. 107] 



of a wide mountain-valley, but also the slopes that 

 bound it on either hand. The " High Pamir " of 

 the Russian traveller we therefore speak of as 

 "The Pamirs." 



The climate of this region is rigorous, for the 

 winters are long. July and August are the only 

 months when its plants grow and flower. Though 

 the days are then mostly bright, and the thermo- 

 meter, an hour before sunset on an August after- 

 noon, may register 75O F., the temperature during 

 the ensuing night may be 14O F., and even in 

 July snowstorms occur. As a rule, however, bit- 

 terly cold winds blow day after day until sunset, 

 and, even when the days are calm, brief but violent 

 evening gales may sweep down the mountain- 

 slopes, carrying with them gravel and stones. At 

 noon on an overcast August day the water welling 

 from a hot spring may be partly converted into 

 ice as it trickles away. The air is dry; in 1898 the 

 average humidity was 38 in July and 21 in August. 

 Periods of more than three months may pass 

 without falls of rain or snow. Even on the high 

 passes in March the snow is rarely so deep as to 

 impede travel, for at 12,500 ft., the elevation at 

 which the Kirghiz seek winter-quarters, it does 

 not prevent their herds from finding pasturage. 



Seen from a high divide, the valley-floors below 

 appear brown save for the narrow green belts 

 which skirt the rivers. One looks north over a 

 valley to a brown mountain-slope the wide screes 

 of which resemble darker shadows; or south to 

 another mountain-slope with a green zone close 

 under its snow-fields, green patches near its 

 mountain-streams, and usually a fainter green 

 tinge elsewhere. In the clear atmosphere, the 

 lines of the watercourses that score the mountain- 

 slopes are well defined, and seem deeper than else- 

 where on slopes facing east or west. This appear- 

 ance is deceptive; what from afar are taken for 

 the shadows of deep clefts one finds on closer 

 view to be lines of vegetation along the south 

 side of each shallow stream-bed (Fig. i). The 

 reaction of the vegetation both to exposure and 

 to moisture at the root is, in this region, so 

 marked as to be perceptible miles away. 



Our floristic knowledge of the High Pamir is 

 considerable. Before 1890 Russian travellers had 

 visited the region. In 1891 Sir F. E. Young- 

 husband collected a few plants in the Taghdum- 

 bash, an eastern Pamir. In 1895 an Indian Pamir 

 Boundary Commission, approaching by way of 

 Gilgit and Bozai Gumbaz, entered the region from 

 the south on July 20, and remained there until 

 September 16. During this period Lt.-Col. Alcock 

 was able to visit the eastern end of the Great, 

 and to make a thorough botanical investiga- 

 tion of the Little, Pamir. A list of the species 

 collected, prepared by Mr. J. F. Duthie, was pub- 

 lished in Alcock's "Report on the Natural History 

 Results " of this Commission on April 12, 1898. 

 In June, .1898, a Danish expedition, led by 



