92 
EXPLORATIONS IN TURKESTAN. 
distinctness the significant feature of over-steepened lower walls. All the cirques 
were associated with sharpened peaks and aretes. Two cirques, hanging over a 
glaciated trough, have already been mentioned in connection with the moraines on 
the headwaters of the Ula-khol. Similar features were seen farther east in the same 
range when we examined it a few dajs later through our glasses from the north 
side of Issik Kul. Cirques, needle peaks, and sharp aretes were well developed in 
the Kungei Ala-tau by the Sutto-bulak pass. One of the cirques opened in the side 
wall of the main valley several lunidred feet above its floor, as shown in fig. 56. Its 
floor must have been at an elevation of about 10,000 feet. 
The characteristic as.sociation of these various glacial forms in the higher ranges 
and their .striking contrast with forms of normal origin in the lower ranges was a 
suggestive lesson in mountain sculpture. 
THE NARIN TERTIARY BASIN. 
After crossing the open pass that separated the basin of the (eastern) Kugart 
from that of the Makmal, w-e found ourselves in a basin of partly consolidated 
conglomerates, sandstones, and clays, which was continued eastward down the 
Alabuga Valley, and whose end was not reached where we forded the Narin River 
and crossed the mountains on the way to Son Kul. Although no fossils were found 
Fig. 37. — General Cross-section of the Narin Formation, looking east. 
in the strata of the basin, we regarded them as of Tertiary age from their resem- 
blance to the Tertiaries of the Rocky Mountain region. The most noteworthy 
features of the Narin fonuation are as follows. 
THE PERIOD OF DEPOSITION. 
The basal beds of the formation were seen along the southern border of the 
Chaar Tash range, at the headwaters of the Makmal. They lay unconformably on 
granites and limestones. The surface of contact was of small relief, as far as could be 
judged b}' the continuity of the outcrops of the basal Narin beds along the mountain 
side. The formation consists of muddy conglomerates, bright red in color in its 
lower and marginal part, and of grayish clays, sometimes banded with red, toward 
the middle of the basin ; it includes a series of salt and gypsum beds in the lower 
members of the central area, as revealed there in a strong anticline. The stratifi- 
cation of the conglomerates and sandstones is variable and irregular, and cross- 
bedding was common. The stratification of the clays is often remarkably regular ; 
but in many sections of all these beds, toward the center of the basin as well as 
near the margin, lenses or " channel fillings " were of common occurrence. These 
