EXPLORING IN TIBET.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 304, 17 September 1908, Page 7

EXPLORING IN TIBET.

♦ SVEN HEDIN'S RETURN. (BI TBIEQBirH—PEES3 ASSOCIATION—COPYRIGHT.) London, September 15. Dr. Sven Hedin, the explorer, who started from Tohoran, Persia, on January 1, 1906, to explore Central Asia and Tibet, has arrived at Simla, in the Punjab, India. • Ho reports wonderful discoveries made by him in Western Tibet. There is, he says, still ample room for futuro explorers. Dr. Hedin will shortly deliver a leoturQ under tho auspices of the Royal Geographical Society in London. A SEQOND HIMALAYA RANQE. SOURCES OF SOME GREAT RIVERS. From time to time Dr. Sven Hedin has been able to send from Tibet some highly interesting letters. One of the last received from, him was dated "Gartpk (in the south-east), October 7, 1907." In this letter, which is printed, in "Petermanns Mitteilungen," he says: "It js exactly half a year siice I left Shigatse, and many great and important discoveries have been made in the interval. The great range which I first orossed at the Sela-la (pass) I have now surmounted by four other high passos, and sp h<ve been, atlq to trace its course. -- Jt ia ah enormous chain, certainly riot inferior in length to the Himalayas, and. the mean height of tho passes is greater; only in the height of the peaks do tho Himalayas retain, of course, tho advantage. . •. : After paying a short visit to Nepal, I followed the discovery of the source of the Prahmaputra, which oomes from a huge glacier mass, the Ivuhi-gangri, belonging to the northernmost chain of the Himalayas. Then for fi,ve weeks I studied the Sutlej problem. The real, source of this river lies not where it is marked on the maps, but two long days' journey east-, south-east of Manasarowar., Ou tho same pass frpm which tho most westerly branch of the Brahmaputra flows eastward begins the river Tagotsanpo, which falls into the Manaqavowar, Then I made a pilgrim journey round the Kailas, and froiu the Temple of Diri-pu an excursion to the source of the Indus, where, so far as I know, no European has been hitherto. Tho sourco is calle.d by the Tibetans Singi-Kabap—that is, the mouth put; of which the Indus ccmes. Frpm hero I travelled through unknown ccuntry to Yamba-matsu, in 82dog. nerth latitude, and' then baok to Gar, tok, crossing the Indus again. Maps must now undergo many oxtensivo alterations. E?-. pecialljr remarkable will be a quite new gigan. tic range right across the whole of Tibet, for tho Nin-jeng-tang-la, to the south of tho Tongri-nor, is the same chain which 1 crossed a few days ago to the north of Gartok by the high and difficult pass Jukti-la. . . . Now I Bin on my way to Ladak. A year and three mq'nths in Tibet is enough for any ordinaryman, and now another winter is beginning, with the thermometer already at a minimum of 21.3 Centigrade, as it was last night."