86 / 
THE LOP-NOR PROBLEM 
of communication is proved by these very potais, for the 
Chinese do not take the trouble to erect such conveniences, 
even at the present day, except along the most important 
caravan-routes. 
Przhevalsky was the first European who visited Lop- 
nor. He however found the lake a full degree farther to 
the south than it was shown on the Chinese maps ; more- 
over, he announced that its water was fresh, not salt." In 
consequence of this, he became involved in a controversy 
with the German geographer, Baron von Richthofen— a 
controversy which has been awaiting a definite solution 
ever since Przhevalsky’s death. Baron von Richthofen 
wrote a paper in the Verhandhmgen (Proceedings) of the 
Geographical Society of Berlin, in which with singular 
acumen he demonstrated that a desert lake, such as 
Lop-nor, which possesses no outflow to the sea, i^^t 
indisputably and of necessity contain salt water. Now 
seeing that the basin discovered by Przhevalsky contained 
fresh water, and in view of the further fact, that the 
Chinese topographers never enter any geographical feature 
upon their maps unless they have themselves actually seen 
it, and yet they had a Lop-nor a full degree north of the 
position in which Przhevalsky placed the lake which he 
discovered, Von Richthofen suggested that Przhevalsky s 
lake must be a modern formation, which has come into 
existence since the Chinese mapped their Lop-nor. 
Przhevalsky travelled to his Lop-nor by the great high- 
way which runs between the Koncheh-daria and the 
Tarim, and could not therefore possibly ascertain whether 
farther to the east there was or was not a lake, or the 
desiccated basin of a lake, because that question could 
only be answered by travelling on the east side of the 
Koncheh-daria- for there ought to be on that side a 
branch flowing from the Koncheh-daria into the old Lop- 
nor of the Chinese maps. In the controversy which raged 
between the two great authorities, both parties were right, 
as I shall show in what follows. ^ _ 
Since Przhevalsky first discovered his Lop-nor, it has 
* See Introduction, pp. 15-18. 
