I 76 
EXPLORATIONS IN TURKESTAN. 
SUBSIDIARY BASINS. 
On the border of the great Kashgar basin lie several small basins of similar 
origin. Three of these were seen, of ■which tlie largest and most important, that 
of Shor Kill, will be treated at length when we come to the consideration of recent 
climatic changes. For the present it is enough to say that Shor Knl occupies an 
inclosed basin lying between flat-topped monntains, foot-hills of the Tian Shan 
platean. It appears to ha\-e been formed by simple warping of the crnst without 
faulting, l)ut this can not be stated definitely, as it was impossible to make a com- 
plete circuit of the basin. The floor is a marshy plain, in the center of which is 
the verj- shallow salt lake. The other two basins, those of IVIin Yol and Kuzzil Oi, 
are traversed by the main caravan route to Fergana, and lie respectively 30 and 50 
B 
s 
^^^^^^^^^^^T^^^^^S^^f^ 
I^SS" - ^^^--^Vji' — 'Je^ 
Fig. 127. — Fault scarp on the soulhern side of the Kuzzil Oi Basin, with a smooth deposit, ot silt 
lying in h'ont of it. 
miles west by north of Kashgar. They are 8 or 10 miles long and are filled with a 
smooth fluviatile deposit sloping from north to south. On the north it interlocks 
with the spurs of the mountains in normal fashion, exhibiting bays of gravel 
alternating with promontories of rock. On the south, on the contrary-, the under- 
lying rock rises suddenly and steeply in a straight-fronted ridge without spurs or 
bays (fig. 127), through which the outflowing streams have cut steep-sided and nar- 
row gorges. In the case of Min Yol the material that fills the basin is apparently 
all gravel ; the ridge at the south, as observed at a distance, seems to have been 
produced by folding rather than by faulting. The Kuzzil Oi basin, on the other 
hand, is filled in the lower part with fine silt, level and swampy (fig. 127), and the 
