The Proposed Nomenclature of the Karakoram-Himalaya

Abstract

SIR SIDNEY BURRARD has written a defence of the existing nomencla? ture of the Mountains of the Karakoram. I quite agree that it served its purpose in 1880, when little was known of the geography, though I maintain that Muztagh would even then have been better than Karakoram for the main range. As my report and suggestions have been quoted by Sir Sidney, I feel it desirable to explain in some detail my proposals. His' Sketeh of the Geography and Geology of the Himalayan Mountains and Tibet' has always been my Bible; but it was written over twenty years ago, and it must be to some extent out of date to-day, since our knowledge of the Himalaya has advanced. In it he first sorted order out of chaos, where there were sufficient data to go upon. I have read it over and over again, and in a humble way have tried to carry out his ideas. My main contention now is that Karakoram is definitely unsuitable for the alignment as shown on our pre-war maps, that Karakoram has been used far more for the region than for the range, and that it is now definitely inconvenient to use it for both. Sir Sidney says in his Geography: Colonel Montgomerie . . . named the whole Karakoram region K and its peaks K2, K2, K3, etc. Wood describes his explorations on the Depsang and by the Karakoram pass as in the Eastern Karakoram; De Filippi uses * Karakoram and Western Himalaya' for the title of his book on the Duke of the Abruzzi's explorations in the Baltoro area; for an area between these two, the Workmans use the term Western Karakoram; the Vissers include the glaciers west of the Hunza river among their Karakoram glaciers. Sir Sidney Burrard himself says: Are there two Karakoram ranges parallel to one another? . . . No second Karakoram range has been shown upon the frontispiece to Part I; its existence as a separate crustal fold is conjectural. . . . Even the great Karakoram peaks themselves seem to follow two alignments. . . . Of the Karakoram peaks north-east of K2 we have no knowledge. That was in 1906. I maintain that the whole area has been called Karakoram or KarakoramHimalaya. Burrard hinted at other Karakoram alignments both to the south and to the north of the range of the great peaks. It is Longstaff who says that the southern range, called by Burrard the Kailas, is more akin to the main Kara? koram range than to the Kailas mountain many miles away to the south-east (G.J., vol. 69, 1927, p. 329). He confirms Burrard's suggestion, and says: Yes: there is a second alignment of Karakoram peaks south of the northern one. I have merely filled in Burrard's admitted blank in our knowledge about th; Karakoram peaks north-east of K2. Do these not lie on the Aghil-Karakoam range? Sir Martin Conway's mapof the Hispar,Biafo,and Baltoro glaciers,published by the Society in 1894, was headed Karakoram Himalayas. A. C. Ferber in the Geographical Journal, December 1907, described his Explorations of the Muztagh pass in the Karakoram Himalayas. The title of Sir F. De Filippi's lecture to the Royal Geographical Society on 21 November 1910 was Expedition of H.R.H. the Duke of the Abruzzi to the Karakoram Himalayas.