PAMIRS. The name of a chain of mountains in Central Asia. Our estimate of the extent of Pamir conformation depends much on the significance of the word Pamir. If we accept the Persian derivation of the term, pai-mir, or "the foot of moun tain peaks," we have a definition which is by no means an inapt illustration of the actual facts of configuration. The plateau of Tibet and the uplands of the Pamirs are not analogous in physi ography, and do not merge into each other. Littledale points out (R.G.S. Journ., vol. vii.) that the high-level valleys of glacial formation which distinguish the Pamirs have no real counterpart in the Chang-t'ang or high plains of Tibet. The latter are 2,000 ft. higher, intersected by narrow ranges, are drained by no rivers of importance, but form a region of salt lakes and stagnant marshes, relieved by wide flat spaces of open plateau country. The absence of any vegetation beyond grass or scrub is a strik ing feature common to both Pamir and Chang-t'ang, but there the resemblance ceases, and the physical conformation of mountain and valley to the east and to the west of the upper sources of the Zarafshan is radically distinct.
The Pamirs are divided by the great meridional mountain chain of Sarikol with Murtag Ata (24,388 ft.). This chain divides the high-level sources of the Oxus on the west from the streams which sweep downwards into the Turkestan depression of Kashgar on the east. There are the true Pamirs (i.e., valleys reaching up in long slopes to the foot of mountain peaks) on either side, and those on the west differ in some essential respects from those on the east. On the west the following are generally recognized as distinct Pamirs: (I) the Great Pamir, with Lake Victoria; (2) the Little Pamir, separated from the Great Pamir on the north by the Nicolas range; (3) the Pamir-i-Wakhan; the narrow trough of the Wakhan tributary of the Oxus, the term Pamir applying to its upper reaches only; (4) the Alichur—the Pamir of the Yeshil Kul and Ghund—immediately to the north of the Great Pamir; (5) the Sarez Pamir, the valley of the Murghab river, which has here found its way round the east of the Great Pamir and the Alichur from the Little Pamir, and now makes westwards for the Oxus. At the foot of the Sarez Pamir stands
Murghabi. To the north-east of the Alichur are the Rang Kul and the Kara Kul Pamirs. Rang Kul lake occupies a central basin or depression; but the Kara Kul drains away north-eastwards through the Sarikol (as the latter, bending westwards, merges into the Trans-Alai) to Kashgar and the Turkestan plains. Similar characteristics distinguish all these Pamirs. They are hemmed in and separated by snow-capped mountain peaks and ridges, which are seamed with glaciers terminating in moraines. Long sweeps of grassy upland bestrewn with boulders lead from the streams up to the snowfields, yellow, grey or vivid green, according to season and the measure of sunlight, fold upon fold in intermin able succession, their bleak monotony being only relieved by the grace of flowers for a short space during the summer.
To the east of the Sarikol chain is the Taghdumbash Pamir which claims many of the characteristics of the western Pamirs at its upper extremity, where the Karachukar, which drains it, is a comparatively small stream. But where the Karachukar, joining forces with the Khunjerab, flows northwards to Tashkur ghan, dividing the two parallel ranges of Sarikol and Kandar, which together form the Sarikol chain, the appellation Pamir can hardly be maintained. This is the richest portion of the Sarikol province. Here are stone-built houses collected in scattered de tachments, with a spread of cultivation reaching down to the river. Here are water-mills and many permanent appliances of civilization suited to the lower altitude (11,50o ft., the average height of the upper Pamirs being about 13,000), and here we are no longer near the sources of the river at the foot of the moun tain peaks. One other so-called Pamir exists to the east of Sari kol, separated therefrom by the Kandar, which is known as Mar iom or Mariong. But this Pamir is situated nowhere near the sources of the Zarafshan or Raskam river, which it borders, and possesses little in common with the Pamirs of the west. The Mariom Pamir defines the western extremity of the Kuen Lun, which stretches eastwards for 25o m. before it becomes the po litical boundary of northern Tibet.