882 
THROUGH ASIA 
an account of the discoveries I had made, and it was 
printed in the Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft filr Erdktmde zu 
Beidin, vol. xxxi., 1896, pp. 295-361. My paper was 
accompanied by a note from the pen of Baron von 
Richthofen, in which, after a brief iZstimd of the earlier 
phase of the Lop-nor controversy, he went on to say, 
“ Several travellers have, it is true, followed the course 
of the Tarim, but they have all trodden in the footsteps 
of Przhevalsky. It was for that reason Dr. Sven Hedin 
undertook to solve the problem. The fact of his choosing 
a more easterly route from north to south proves that 
he had a just appreciation of the question at issue. His 
observations, and the conclusions he has drawn from them, 
have enabled him to confirm the accuracy of my deductions 
in the Verhandhmgen (Proceedings) of the Geographical 
Society of Berlin in the year 1878 (vide pp. 121-144).” 
Kozlofif analyzes the various accounts of the Lop-nor 
di.strict — Przhevalsky ’s, Von Richthofen’s, Pievtsoff’s, 
Bogdanovitch’s, his own, and mine, and arrives at the 
following result : — “ The only conclusion I can draw from 
the above-quoted discussion is this — that Kara-koshun 
kul is not only the Lop-nor of my revered teacher N. 
M. Przhevalsky, but also the real historical ancient 
Lop-nor of the Chinese geographers. As it is now, 
so it has been during the last thousand years, and so 
it will continue to be.” This result Is all the more 
surprising, because on the very same page, only a few 
lines earlier, he writes thus, “ I am entirely of Sven 
Hedin’s opinion, that the ancestors of the present in- 
habitants of Lop-nor formerly dwelt beside a lake which 
lay to the north of Lop-nor. It was the lake Utchu-kul, 
regarding which Pievtsoff has left us an account.” These 
statements imply a direct contradiction : they prove that 
the lake has not remained In its existing condition “during 
the last thousand years.” But the uncritical character of 
this talk about the thousand unchangeable years is best 
demonstrated by Kozloff’s own map. He there shows the 
“ancient bed (Kum-daria) of the Koncheh-darla ” south 
of Kurruk-tagh, the “dry river-bed (Kottek-Tarim) ” 
