Page:Mongolia, the Tangut country, and the solitudes of northern Tibet vol 1 (1876).djvu/83

Rh road, which crosses it diagonally. Here the barometrical levels of Fuss and Bunge in 1832, the journeys of Timkowski, Kowalevsky, and other savants, some of whom have generally accompanied our ecclesiastical missions to China, have enlightened us on the topography and physical character of this part of Asia. Lastly, the recent journey of the astronomer Fritsche on the Eastern Gobi, and my own observations in its south-eastern, southern, and central parts, have supplied, not merely conjectural but most accurate data concerning the topography, climate, flora, and fauna of the eastern half of the great desert of Central Asia.

The barometrical levelling of of Fuss and Bunge first exploded the theory, till then prevalent among geographers, of the great height (8,000 feet) of the whole Gobi, reducing it to 4,000 feet. Further observations by the same savants proved that in the direction of the Kiakhta-Kalgan caravan road the absolute height of the plateau in the middle part sinks to 2,400 feet, or as Fritsche will have it, even to 2,000 feet; and this depression continues for about sixty-five miles, but does not extend far to the east, as Fritsche's journey showed, nor to the west, as we found on our march from Ala-shan to Urga, through the centre of the desert. It should also be mentioned that the Eastern Gobi is not so thoroughly desert in character as it becomes towards the south and west. Thus, the plains in Ala-shan, and in the vicinity of Lake Lob, are sterile and desolate in the extreme. VOL. I. с