Page:From Kulja, across the Tian Shan to Lob-Nor (1879).djvu/102

Rh range, the Chamen-tagh, these two valleys with their marginal ranges continuing far beyond the eastern horizon, whilst on the west all three—the Altyn-tagh, the unnamed, and the Chamen-tagh—unite not far from the town of Cherchen in one snowy chain, Tuguz-daban, extending to the towns of Keria and Khotan. The natives distinguish under separate names the two parts of the Altyn-tagh; the mountains nearest to the desert of Lob they call Astyn-tagh (i.e. lower hills), those farthest removed from it towards the axis of the range, Ustiun-tagh (i.e. upper hills). Clay, marls, sandstone, and limestone prevail on the outer border of Altyn-tagh, porphyry is not uncommon in the higher parts, but granite is rare. Water is very deficient in these mountains, even springs are rare, and in such as are to be met with, the water is mostly of a bitter-saline flavour. These hills are in general characterized by extreme sterility, the scanty vegetation being confined to the upper valleys and gorges, where two or three kinds of the prevailing low, stunted, saline plants, three or four of the order Compositæ, and dwarf bushes of Potentilla, Ephedra, &c., may be found.

As a rarity I occasionally saw withered blossoms of Statice and climbing Euonymus. Tamarisk grows at the bottom of the ravines, reeds on the damper ground (up to 9000 feet), here and