112 Report on the Progress of the Magnetic Survey. [No. 2. 



Kiuk-kiul lake being the only exception. We had taken with us 

 a small supply of gram, anticipating in some degree the sterility 

 we met with, which saved our horses from absolute starvation. 

 Nevertheless, they suffered dreadfully, the more so as the great 

 scarcity of grass compelled us to make long marches of twenty 

 to twenty-four miles a day. Close to the Kiuk-kiul we met with 

 a very interesting group of more than fifty hot springs, chiefly con- 

 taining muriate of soda (common salt), and a great quantity of 

 carbonic acid. The temperature varied from 25° to 49° C. === 77° to 

 120° Fahrenheit. 



"We had already met in the valley of the Nubra with two other 

 groups, the one near Panamick, (hottest spring, 78.1°=172.6° 

 Fahrenheit) ; the other near Changlung, (74.1° C. = 165.4° Fahren- 

 heit). After a march of seventy miles in four days, we came to 

 Sumgal, where a route branches off to the valley of Bushia, and to 

 Eichi the capital of Khotan. 



Before reaching Sumgal we had nearly lost our road. Mahomed 

 Amin, who generally accompanied us, had gone in front, whilst we 

 were engaged in measuring the breadth of the river and the depth 

 of its erosion. We saw him distinctly with our telescope on the 

 other side of it, and followed his and his horse's foot-prints until 

 six p. M., when they again crossed the water. But our people being 

 behind us, we turned back to meet them ; but no trace of them 

 was found, as they had evidently also lost their way and had kept 

 on the wrong bank of the river : we again tried, it being now eight 

 o'clock P. M., to cross the river, which is here divided into many 

 branches, but were overtaken in the middle by nightfall, and were 

 obliged to stop on a low mud bank. Our first care was to secure 

 our two horses, fastening their legs with the straps of our sextant 

 and our prismatic compass. We now observed, on a little Myri- 

 caria stem close to our resting-place, that the water was gradually 

 rising from the melting of a late fall of snow. Fortunately the 

 great breadth of the river secured our bank from being overflowed, 

 though the moisture of the ground was rapidly increasing. 



The next day, August the 20th, we found our people in the after- 

 noou, and Amin at Sumgal in the evening ; our horses had suffered 

 so much from fatigue as well as from scarcity of food, that on the 



