Page:From Kulja, across the Tian Shan to Lob-Nor (1879).djvu/47

28 two ranges; as for instance, of the Bolor or of the meridian chains to the east of the river Tzang-bo-schou with the Hindoo Khoosh and the Himalayas. The phenomenon which we describe is of quite a different nature. The upheaval of the Plateau of Gobi, stretching from S.W. to N.B., and, according to the most exact barometrical measurements taken in the 43° and 48° of latitude, about four thousand feet mean height, is perhaps of the same age as the great Aralo-Caspian depression."

The account of the Lob district, given in the Report of the Yarkand Mission, may be advantageously compared with Colonel Prejevalsky's personal observations.

Lob is the name of a district on the banks of the Tarim river, which is formed by the union of all the rivers from Yulduz, of Ili, round by the western circuit of Kashgar to Khoten and Charchan.

Lob was only peopled 160 years ago by emigrant families of the Kara Kalmuk, Koshot, Torgute, &c., to the number of 1000 houses. They are now all professedly Mussulmans, and have Mulla and Imam priests amongst them, but they do not know much about Islam. There were people in Lob before these Kalmuk emigrants came, but nothing is known regarding them. They are called "wild" people, because they delight to live with the wild beasts and their cattle in the thickets