RECORDS 
OF THE 
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OE INDIA. 
Part 3.] , 1874. [August. 
Geological observations made on a visit to the Chadekkul, Thian Shan range, 
by Dr. F. Stoliczka, Naturalist attached to the Ya/rTcand Embassy. 
After a stay of nearly a month in our embassy quarters at Yangishar, near Kashgar, 
the diplomacy of our envoy secured us the Amir’s permission for a trip to the Chaderkul, a 
lake situated close on the Russian frontier, about 112 miles north by west of Kashgar, 
among the southern branches of the Thian Shan range. Under the leadership of Colonel 
Gordon, we—Captain Trotter and myself—left Yangishar about noon on the last day of 
1873, receiving the greeting of the new year in one of the villages of the Artush valley, 
some 25 miles north-west from our last quarters. On the 1st of January 1874 we marched 
up the Toyan river for about 20 miles to a small encampment of the Kirghiz, called Chung- 
terek; and following the Toyan, and passing the forts Murza-terek and Chakmak, we 
camped on the fifth day at Turug-at-bela, about 11 miles south of the Turug pass, beyond 
which, five miles further on, lies the Chaderkul. On the sixth we visited the lake, and on 
the day following retraced our steps, by the same route we came, towards Kashgar, which 
we reached on the 11th January. 
Having had a shooting day at Turug-at-bela, and one day’s halt with the King’s ob¬ 
liging officers at the Chakmak fort, we were actually only nine days on the march, during 
which we accomplished a distance of about 224 miles. It will be readily understood, that 
while thus marching, there was not much time to search for favorable sections in out-of-the 
way places ; but merely to note what was at hand on the road. I can, therefore, only intro¬ 
duce my geological observations as passing remarks. 
Leaving the extensive loss-deposits of the valley of the Kashgar Daria, the plain rises very 
gradually towards a low ridge, of which I shall speak as the Artush range. It is remarka bly 
uniform in its elevation, averaging about 400 feet, somewhat increasing in height towards the 
west and diminishing towards the east, which direction is its general strike. This range 
separates the Kashgar plain from the valley of the Artush river, which cuts through the 
ridge about eight miles nearly due north of the city. Viewed from this, the entire ridge 
appears very regularly furrowed and weather-wom on its slope, indicating the softness oE the 
material of which it is composed. One would have, however, hardly fancied, that it merely 
consists of bedded clay and sand, mostly yellowish white, occasionally reddish, and some¬ 
times with interstratified layers of greater consistency, hardened by a calcareous or silicious 
cement. On the left bank, in the passage of the river through the ridge, the beds appear in 
dome-shape, gently dipping towards the Kashgar plain on one side, and with a considerably 
higher angle into the Artush valley on the other. On the right bank at the gap all the 
