Page:From Kulja, across the Tian Shan to Lob-Nor (1879).djvu/100

Rh whole of this distance the Altyn-tagh serves to buttress a lofty plateau overhanging the Lob-nor desert, and most probably forming the northern limit of the Tibetan highlands; at least this is what the inhabitants gave us to understand, one and all assuring us that the south-western prolongations of the Altyn-tagh continued to margin the desert uninterruptedly as far as the towns of Keria and Khotan. According to the same informants this range stretches a long way in an easterly direction, but where it terminates none could say.

In the central part of the range where we explored it the topography is as follows: First, from Chargalyk to the Djagansai rivulet it stands like a perpendicular wall above the barren, pebbly plain, hardly if at all above the level of Lake Lob. From Djagansai to Kurgan-bulak rivulet (and possibly even further east), that is to say, exactly south of the lake, the plain rises in a steep but gradual incline to the foot of the mountains, until (at Asganlyk spring) it attains an elevation of 7700 feet above the sea. At Kurgan-bulak and eastward to the rivulet Djaskansai lies a confused network of low clay hills; east of this again hillocks of drift-sand, known under the name of Kum-tagh are reported to extend in a broad belt far away to the east (probably skirting the foot of the Altyn-tagh the whole way) to within two marches of Sha-chau.