Page:Mongolia, the Tangut country, and the solitudes of northern Tibet vol 1 (1876).djvu/304

 or Trans-Ordos. This region is covered with bare sand-drift, extending on the west to the River Etsina, on the south to the lofty mountains of the province of Kan-su, and on the north disappearing altogether in the unfruitful clay flats of the central Gobi desert. These are the natural as well as the political boundaries of Ala-shan, which is bordered by the Khalka and Urute countries on the north, and by the province of Kan-su and a small part of Ordos on the other sides.

Topographically Ala-shan is a perfectly level plain, which, like Ordos, in all probability once formed the bed of a huge lake or inland sea. This fact is evidenced by the level area of the whole region, its hard saline clay and sand-covered soil, and lastly the salt lakes, which are formed in the lowest parts