580 REPORT—1883. 
Stoliczka records it! with slates and schists resting on it to the southward. Now 
the next great granitoid axis south of the above, with paleozoic rocks on its 
northern face, is at the Mustagh pass, fifty miles to the south of the Kuenlun 
at Zangi-diwan, and it coincides in position with the gneiss of Kila Panza,’ 
the granitic axis of the Mustagh being continued W.N.W. in the high peaks of 
Hunza-Nagar. The Kuenlun axis passes by Shahdula eastward by peaks E. 61, 
23,890, E. 64, 21,500, up to Yeshil-Kul on the Keria route, for a distance of about 
450 miles; beyond this is unexplored country. 
I have adopted the term Mustagh as one well known to the people on both sides 
of the range, and better known than Karakoram, applied by them to the pass 
of that name. The Karakoram pass also lies on an axis of elevation further to the 
north and intermediate between the Mustagh and Kuenlun. 
2. Mustagh.—This axis, as I have shown above, commences near Kila Panza 
in Wakhan, thence by the Baroghil and Kerambar passes to the great peaks 
dominating the Hunza valley to the Mustagh pass, eastward by K, 28,250, to the 
great peaks north of the Shayok, K,, K,o, K,,, K,,,° the Sassar pass, and thence S.E. 
on to the Marse Mik La and the high mass north of the Pangkong Lake, crossing 
at Nyak Tso on to the high range south of the Rudok plain, where we again enter 
unsurveyed ground. It is probably continuous to the Aling Gangri, the old 
original drainage of the Shayok passing through it at the Pangkong Lake, thus 
repeating in a similar way that of the Indus through the Ladak range near 
Hanlé. This most remarkable depression of the whole area, the Rudok plaim, lies 
S.E. of the Pangkong Lake, where, on the same meridian as the sources of the 
Indus and Tsang-po, we have a plain only a little above 14,000 feet, which once 
drained in glacial and preglacial times into the Shayolk, rendering that branch 
as long, probably longer than the present Indus. From a high point above the 
Pangkong I have looked over this plain; for a distance of some sixty miles it was 
seen bounded to the south by mountains of over 21,000 feet, and no mountain 
ranges broke the horizon. The depression is a broad and continuous one here, lower 
and more extensive than that at the head of the Indus. It is not improbable that 
it indicates the head waters of the next great drainage area north of the Indus, 
viz., of the rivers that find an exit to the sea through Burmah. The Gang-rhi and 
Karakoram, or Mustagh, cannot be therefore considered as one range separating the 
Indus basin from that of the northern or central plateau of Thibet. This must lie 
across the broad elevated plateau that extends from the Karakoram pass, having 
a general parallelism to the Kuenlun certainly so far as 34° N. and L. 82° E. 
The crystalline limestone near the west end of the Pangkong Lake would appear 
to be the same as the similar limestone at Shigar near Scardo. It comes in, too, 
on the north side of the great gneissic axis, the northern boundary of which follows 
the Shayok River pretty closely from Tanksé and Shayok to Khapalu. The foldings 
in the gneiss which have caught up the paleozoic slates near Tanksé are again on 
the west indicated by the metamorphic schists on the Indus south of Kartaksho, 
and by those in the section 8. W. of Scardo. 
QN. Karakoram-Lingzxi Thang Range.—West of the pass the country is not 
known. Eastward the line of elevation passes north of the Dipsang plain to the 
Compass La, and south of the Lingzi Thang plain, by the Changlung Burma La to 
the neighbourhood of the Kiang La, and thence still further east it may pass north 
of Sarthol into Garchethol. 
8. The Ladak-Gurla Range.—This is the best defined, as a continuous granitoid 
lines; the result of the original elevation, and subsequent denudation. In astrictly 
geographical sense these must be indicated—especially where they have any consider- 
able extension, or become a noticeable feature of the country—as, for instance, the 
relative position of the Baralasa ridge to the Zaskar, a portion of the main Hima- 
laya. 
1 Scientific Results of the Yarkand Mission, p. 38. 
2 Stoliczka, loc. cit. p. 38. 
8 Unknown and unnamed peaks were thus designated during the progress of the 
triangulation, 
