Tian-shan Sentence Examples

In the south Semiryechensk embraces the intricate systems of the Ala-tau and the Tian-shan.

South of the lake two ranges of the Tian-shan, separated by the valley of the Naryn, stretch in the same direction, lifting up their icy peaks to 16,000 and 18,000 ft.; while westwards from the lake the precipitous slopes of the Alexander chain, 9000 to io,000 ft.

Southwards from the last-named, however, at the foot of the mountains and at the entrance to the valleys, there are rich areas of fertile land, which are being rapidly colonized by Russian immigrants, who have also penetrated into the Tian-shan, to the east of Lake Issyk-kul.

The Chu rises in the Tian-shan Mountains and flows north-westwards through Akmolinsk; and the Naryn flows south-westwards along a longitudinal valley of the Tian-shan, and enters Ferghana to join the Syr-darya.

High plateaus like that of Pamir (the " Roof of the World ") and Armenia, and lofty mountain chains like the snow-clad Caucasus, the Alai, the Tian-shan, the Sayan Mountains, exist only on the outskirts of the empire.

Shelving gradually upward from the low flats of Siberia the general continental level rises to a great central waterparting, or divide, which stretches from the Black Sea through the Elburz and the Hindu Kush to the Tian-shan mountains in the Pamir region, and hence to Bering Strait on the extreme north-east.

Only a part of this great continental divide (including such ranges as the Hindu Kush, Tian-shan, Altai or Khangai) rises to any great height, a considerable portion of it being below 5000 ft.

The Pamir highlands between the base of the Tian-shan mountains and the eastern buttresses of the Hindu Kush unite these two great divides, enclosing the Gobi depression on the west; and they would again be united on the east but for the transverse valley of the Amur, which parts the Khingan mountains from the Yablonoi system to the east of Lake Baikal.

Next may be named the Ala-tau, on the prolongation of the Tian-shan, flanking the Syr on the north, and rising to 14,000 or 15,000 ft.

The central area bounded on the north and north-west by the Yablonoi Mountains and their western extension in the Tian-shan, on the south by the northern face of the Tibetan plateau, and on the east by the Khingan range before alluded to, forms the great desert of central Asia, known as the Gobi.

South and east of the Palaeozoic plateau is an extensive area consisting chiefly of Archean rocks, and including the greater part of Mongolia north of the Tian-shan.

The Triassic deposits of the Verkhoyansk Range show that this land did not extend to the Bering Sea; while the marine Mesozoic deposits of Japan on the east, the western Tian-shan on the west and Tibet on the south give us some idea of its limits in other directions.

Of the two divisions (Kara Kirghiz and Kassak Kirghiz) into which the Kirghiz tribes are divided by Russian authorities, the Kassak Kirghiz is the more closely allied to the Mongol type; the Kara Kirghiz, who are found principally in the valleys of the Tian-shan and Altai mountains, being unmistakably Turkish.

They may be traced from the Tian-shan to the Arctic Circle, and have an east-north-easterly direction in lower latitudes and a north-easterly direction farther north.

The Alai range of the Pamir, continued by the Kokshaltau range and the Khan-tengri group of the Tian-shan, and the Sailughem range of the Altai, which is continued in the unnamed border-range of West Sayan (between the Bei-kem and the Us), belong to this category.

The earliest authentic mention of Kashgar is during the second period of ascendancy of the Han dynasty, when the Chinese conquered the Hiungnu, Yutien (Khotan), Sulei (Kashgar), and a group of states in the Tarim basin almost up to the foot of the Tian Shan mountains.

And it is indeed the fact that large portions of the vast region comprised between the lower Volga, the AralIrtysh water-divide, the Dzungarian Ala-tau, and the outliers of the Tian-shan and Hindu-kush systems are actually covered with Aralo-Caspian deposits, nearly always a yellowish-grey clay, though occasionally they assume the character of a more or less compact sandstone of the same colour.

The chief feeder of the lake is the Ili, which rises in the Khantengri group of the Tian-shan Mountains.

Leaving the west gate of the city two roads lead to Lan-chow Fu, from which town begins the great high road into Central Asia by way of Lian-chow Fu, Kan-chow Fu and Su-chow to Hami, where it forks into two branches which follow respectively the northern and southern foot of the Tian-shan range, and are known as the Tian-shan pei lu and the Tian-shan nan lu.

It was along these roads that the fame of China first reached Europe, and it was by the Tian-shan nan lu that Marco Polo entered the empire.

Thence the province stretches northwards across the mountains of the Tian-shan system and southwards across the Alai and Trans-Alai Mts., which reach their highest point in Peak Kaufmann (23,000 ft.), in the latter range.

Prjevalsky's account of his second journey, From Kulja, across the Tian-Shan, to Lop-nor, was translated into English in 187 9.

The former are sufficiently described under the heading Tian-Shan.

The Quaternary epoch is represented by vast morainic deposits in the valleys of the Tian-shan.

In the alpine tracts of the Tian-shan, on the borders of the Pamir, their horns and skulls are frequently met with, but there the place of the species is now taken by Ovis karelini.

Among the Lepidoptera of the Pamir there is an interesting mixture of Tian-shan with Himalayan species.

Towards the end of the Glacial period the Tian-shan Mountains had a flora very like that of northern Caucasia, combining the characteristics of the flora of the European Alps and the flora of the Altai, while the prairies had a flora very much like that of the south Russian steppes.

The country belongs to China, and to the Chinese is known as Sin-kiang; but administratively the Chinese province of Sin-kiang crosses over the Tian-shan and includes the valleys of Kulja or Ili and Dzungaria on the north.

The Tian-shan Mountains skirt East Turkestan on the north-east, where the Kokshal-tau range rises to 16,000 to 18,000 ft.

It is virtually composed of the Yarkand-darya, the Kashgar-darya, and the Ak-su-darya, with constant augmentation from the Koncheh-darya, which drains Lake Bagrash-kul (at the south foot of the eastern Tian-shan), and intermittent augmentation from the Khotan-darya and the Cherchendarya from the south.

Along the south foot of the Tian-shan, and in the high valleys which intervene between the constituent ranges of that system, there exist numerous flourishing oases, such as Uch-turfan, Ak-su, Kucha, Korla, Kara-shahr, Hami, Barkul, Turfan, Urumchi, Manas and Kulja.

The caravan routes mostly followed between China and the more populous centres (Kashgar and Yarkand) of East Turkestan start from An-si-chow and Sa-chow respectively, converge upon Hami on the north side of the Pe-shan swelling, and continue westward along the south foot of the Tian-shan Mountains through the oases of Turfan, Kara-shahr, Korla, Kucha, Ak-su and Uch-turfan.

A similar branch route strikes off at Turfan and cuts through the Tian-shan ranges at Urumchi.

When the Huns (Hiung-nu) occupied west and east Mongolia in 177-165 B.C., they drove before them the Yue-chi (Yutes, Yetes or Ghetes), who divided into two hordes, one of which invaded the valley of the Indus, while the other met the Sacae in East Turkestan and drove them over the Tian-shan into the valley of the Ili.

Consult also hooks cited under TIAN-SHAN, LOP-NOR, GOBI and KUEN-LUN.

Thus the Tian-shan is as a whole narrowest in the east and spreads out fan-like in the west.

The result of these geological changes is that, although the internal structure of the Tian-shan region is highly mountainous, its external appearance, or in other words its geographical aspect, is that of a plateau."

On the south the Bogdo-ola is flanked by the nearly parallel range of the Jargoz, a range which, in contrast to most of the Tian-shan ranges, carries no perpetual snow.

The passes in the Boro-khoro lie at lower altitudes than is usual in the Tian-shan ranges, namely at7000-7415ft.

On its northern side the valley of Borotala is skirted by the important orographic system of the Dzungarian Ala-tau, the northernmost member of the Tian-shan.

Western and Southern Tian-shan.---On the north side of the Issykkul, and separated from the Terskei Ala-tau by that lake, are the twin ranges of the Trans-Ili Ala-tau and Kunghei Ala-tau, parallel to one another and also to the lake and to the Terskei Ala-tau.

In the same north-westerly to south-easterly direction and belonging to the same series of later transverse upheavals are the Ferghana Mountains, which shut in the plain of Ferghana on the north-east, thus running athwart the radiating ranges of the central Tian-shan.

The last outlying range of the Tian-shan system in this direction is the Nura-tau, which, like the Kara-tau farther north, belongs to the more recent series of upheavals having a W.N.W to E.S.E.

Glaciation.-In the central and western parts of the Tian-shan there exist numerous indications of former glaciation on an extensive scale, e.g.

Indeed, the evidences, so far as they have been examined, appear to warrant the conclusion that the region of the western Tian-shan, from Lake Issyk-kul southwards, was in great part the scene of probably five successive glacial periods, each being less severe than the period which immediately preceded it.

A feature generally characteristic of the Tian-shan as a whole is that the absolute elevation of the ranges increases gradually from north to south, and from the centre decreases towards both the east and the west.

As a rule on all the Tian-shan ranges the ascent from the north is steep and from the south relatively gentle.

It used to be supposed that the Tian-shan confronted the basin of the Tarim with a steep, wall-like versant.

Merzbacher, speaking of the slopes of the Khalyk-tau and other neighbouring ranges of the central Tian-shan, says that " nearly everywhere the Tian-shan slopes away gradually towards the high plain at its southern base, in places...

The traditional routes between China on the one side and West Turkestan and Persia on the other have from time immemorial crossed the Tian-shan system at some half a dozen points.

Ellsworth Huntington threw new light on the Tian-shan plateau and the Alai range by his explorations of 1903; and Sven Hedin, between 1899 and 1902, was collecting material in Turkestan and Tibetan fields, and resumed his journeys in 1905-1908, the result being to revolutionize our knowledge of the region north of the upper Tsanpo (see Tibet).