1бб PLAIN OF TSAIDAM. 



Two days' march from the residence of Tsing- 

 hai-wanor we left the mountains behind us. As we 

 crossed the last spurs of the southern range we saw 

 stretching before us the level plain of Tsaidam/ 

 bounded on the north, east, and south by mountains,^ 

 but extending westwards in one continued expanse, 

 as far, according to the natives, as Lake Lob-nor. 



The plain of Tsaidam, which at a comparatively 

 recent geological age formed the bed of a huge lake, 

 is now covered with morasses, so thickly impregnated 

 with salt as to be encrusted with a layer in some 

 places half-an-inch to an inch in thickness, resembling 

 ice. Here too are shaking bogs, small rivers and 

 lakes ; and in the western part of the plain the large 

 Lake of Kara-nor. The most important of its rivers 

 is the Baian-gol, about i,6oo feet wide where we 

 crossed it, but of inconsiderable depth, in fact, not 

 more than three feet, with a soft slimy bed. Accord- 

 ing to the Mongols the Baian-gol flows out of Lake 

 Toso-nor at the eastern extremity of the Burkhan 

 Buddha, and after a course of about 200 miles loses 

 itself in the marshes of Western Tsaidam. 



The saline argillaceous soil of this region is ill- 

 suited to vegetation. With the exception of a few 

 kinds of marshy grasses, which in places grow to- 

 gether and form meadows, the whole expanse is 



' The boundary of Tsaidam lies a little over sixteen miles to the 

 south of Dulan-kit. 



* On the north, by the western continuation of the Southern Koko- 

 nor range, on the south by the Burkhan Buddha mountains of Tibet, 

 and on the east by some transverse chains which unite the two 

 systems. 



