AT KORLA AND KARA-SHAHR 857 
I went thither on March 12th, taking only Kul 
Mohammed with me, and leaving Islam Bai and Kerim 
Jan behind in Korla, to look after the camels and baggage. 
It was a ride of thirty-six miles, and we did it in six 
hours ; arriving just as the ice was breaking up, and the 
Mongols, or, as the Central Asian Mohammedans call them, 
Kalmucks (Kalmak), were getting out their punts to ferry 
travellers and caravans across the river. 1 hus I had 
an excellent opportunity to measure the volume of the 
river, which I did on March 14th, and found it was 1890 
cubic feet in the second, that is to say, during those days 
there flowed every second 640 cubic feet more water out 
of the lake than flowed into it. 
The marks of the highest level reached by the river 
during the previous summer were still visible. The 
ferrymen gave me general data bearing upon the seasonal 
changes of level that the river undergoes. Thus I was 
able to make an approximate calculation of the relative 
inflow and outflow during the year ; and I got as my 
result, that the enormous quantity of 70,650 million cubic 
feet more flow into the lake than out of it. Nor indeed 
is this so very astounding, when you bear in mind, that 
Lop-nor, which at the very least receives as much as 
the Bagrash-koll, does not lose a single drop through any 
outflow, or by any other means except evaporation, and 
that an enormous quantity soaks into the ground. But 
then in that region, where the relative moisture of the 
air is so very insignificant, it is evaporation which plays 
the principal part in maintaining the balance between 
precipitation and drainage. 
What is stranger, however, is that in winter the lake 
discharges a larger quantity than it receives. The ex- 
planation would seem to be this. The large basin enclosed 
between the Tian-shan Mountains and the Kurruk-tagh, a 
basin which it takes a mounted man three days to ride 
through from end to end and one day to cross, acts as 
a distributor or regulator of the water, much in the same 
way as the second ball in a scent-spray. 
Finally, I may mention that the water which flows into 
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