Dr. Georg Wegener in 1863, upon which
map Richthofen and Sven Hedin based their arguments." Kozlov's final
conclusions (_Geog. Jour._ l.c. pp. 657-658) are the following: "The
Koncheh-daria, since very remote times till the present day, has moved a
long way. The spot Gherelgan may be taken as a spot of relative permanence
of its bed, while the basis of its delta is a line traced from the
farthest northern border of the area of salt clays surrounding the Lob-nor
to the Tarim. At a later period the Koncheh-daria mostly influenced the
lower Tarim, and each time a change occurred in the latter's discharge,
the Koncheh took a more westward course, to the detriment of its old
eastern branch (Ilek). Always following the gradually receding humidity,
the vegetable life changed too, while moving sands were taking its place,
conquering more and more ground for the desert, and marking their conquest
by remains of old shore-lines....

"The facts noticed by Sven Hedin have thus another meaning--the desert to
the east of the lakes, which he discovered, was formed, not by Lob-nor,
which is situated 1 deg. southwards, but by the Koncheh-daria, in its
unremitted deflection to the west. The old bed Ilek, lake-shaped in
places, and having a belt of salt lagoons and swamps along its eastern
shores, represents remains of waters belonging, not to Lob-nor, but to the
shifting river which has abandoned this old bed.

"These facts and explanations refute the second point of the arguments
which were brought forward by Sven Hedin in favour of his hypothesis,
asserting the existence of some other Lob-nor.

"I accept the third point of his objections, namely, that the grandfathers
of the present inhabitants of the Lob-nor lived by a lake whose position
was more to the north of Lob-nor; that was mentioned already by Pievtsov,
and the lake was Uchu-Kul.

"Why Marco Polo never mentioned the Lob-nor, I leave to more competent
persons to decide.

"The only inference which I can make from the preceding account is that
the Kara-Koshun-Kul is not only the Lob-nor of my lamented teacher, N. M.
Prjevalsky, but also _the ancient, the historical, and the true Lob-nor_
of the Chinese geographers. So it was during the last thousand years, and
so will it remain, if 'the river of time' in its running has not effaced
it from the face of the Earth."

To Kozlov's query: "Why Marco Polo never mentioned the Lob-nor, I leave to
more competent persons to decide," I