dominant school of Heinrich Ewald. But before long he came under the influence of J. W. Colenso, and learned to regard the prophetic narrative of Genesis, Exodus, and Numbers as older than what was by the Germans denominated Grundschrift (“Book of Origins”). In 1869–1870 he published his book on the religion of Israel, De godsdienst van Israël tot den ondergang van der Joodschen Staat (Eng. trans., 1874–1875). This was followed in 1875 by a study of Hebrew prophecy, De profeten en de profetie onder Israel (Eng. trans., 1877), largely polemical in its scope, and specially directed against those who rest theological dogmas on the fulfilment of prophecy. In 1882 Kuenen went to England to deliver a course of Hibbert lectures, National Religions and Universal Religion; in the following year he presided at the congress of Orientalists held at Leiden. In 1886 his volume on the Hexateuch was published in England. He died at Leiden on the 10th of December 1891.
Kuenen was also the author of many articles, papers and reviews; a series on the Hexateuch, which appeared in the Theologisch Tijdschrift, of which in 1866 he became joint editor, is one of the finest products of modern criticism. His collected works were translated into German and published by K. Budde in 1894. Several of his works have been translated into English by Philip Wicksteed. See the article in Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopädie.
KUEN-LUN, or Kwen-Lun, a term used to designate generally
the mountain ranges which run along the northern edge of the
great Tibetan plateau in Central Asia. In a wider application
it means the succession of ranges which extend from the Pamirs
on the W. to 113° E., until it strikes against or merges in the
steep escarpments of the S.E. flank of the Mongolian plateau.
In the narrower acceptation it applies only to those ranges
which part the desert of Takla-makan on the N. from the Tibetan
plateau on the S. between the Pamirs and the transverse glen
of the Kara-muren, that is, nearly to the longitude of the
town of Cherchen (about 8512° E.). Although the use of the
name is thus restricted in geographical usage, the mountain
system so designated does, as a fact, extend eastwards as far as
the great depression of Tsaidam (say 95° E.), though it is uncertain
whether its direct orographical continuation eastwards
is to be identified with the Astin-tagh, or, as F. Grenard and
K. Bogdanovich believe—and with them Sven Hedin is inclined
to agree—with the parallel ranges of Kalta-alaghan and Arka-tagh,
which lie S. of the Astin-tagh. At any rate the Astin-tagh,
whether it is the principal continuation of the Kuen-lun
or only a subsidiary flanking system, is itself the westward
continuation of the Nan-shan or Southern Mountains, which
reach down far into China (to 113° E.).
Taken in its widest meaning, the Kuen-lun Mountains thus stretch in a wavy line for nearly 2500 m. from E. to W., and while in the W. their constituent ranges are folded and squeezed by lateral compression into a breadth of some 150–200 m., their summits being forced up to correspondingly higher altitudes, in the E. they spread out to a breadth of some 600 m., the ranges being in that quarter less folded, and consequently both flatter and lower. In the tectonic structure of Asia the Kuen-lun forms, as it were, the backbone of the continent. In point of age it is very much older than either the Himalayas to the S. or the Tian-shan to the N. But although the crests of its component ranges reach altitudes of 21,500 to 22,000 ft., they are not as a rule overtopped by individual peaks of commanding and towering elevation, as the Himalayas are, but run on the whole tolerably uniform and relatively at little greater altitude than the lofty valleys which separate them one from another. It is a strikingly marked characteristic of the northern edge of the Tibetan plateau that its outermost border-range (e.g. Western Kuen-lun and Astin-tagh) is throughout double; and this “twinning” of the mountain-ranges, as also of the intermont lake-basins among the Kuen-lun ranges, is a peculiar feature of the Tibetan plateau.
The supreme orographic importance of this great Central Asian mountain system was recognized in a fashion even by the geographers of ancient Greece. They used to suppose that an immense range of mountains crossed Asia from west to east on the parallel of the island of Rhodes, extending through Asia Minor, the Kurdish highlands, the N. of Persia, the N. of Bactria (Afghanistan), the Hindu-kush, and so on into China. This long range they supposed to separate the waters which flow N. to the Arctic from those which flow S. to the Indian Ocean. K. Ritter (Asien, ii.) was the first of modern geographers to recognize the true character of the Kuen-lun as a border range of the Tibetan plateau; and Baron von Richthofen (China, i. 1876) still further defined and accentuated the conception of the system by representing it as a complex arrangement of several parallel ranges, running in wavy lines from the Pamirs (76° E.) eastwards to 118° E. But though von Richthofen’s general conception of the Kuen-lun system was broadly sound and in accordance with facts, the details both of his description and of that of his pupil Wegener[1] require now very considerable revision, and need even to be in part recast, as a consequence of explorations and investigations made since they wrote by, amongst others, the Russian explorers N. M. Przhevalsky, M. V. Pyevtsov, V. I. Roboroysky, P. K. Kozlov, K. Bogdanovich, V. A. Obruchev, and (?) Skassi; by the Englishmen A. D. Carey, A. Dalgleish, St G. R. Littledale, H. Bower, H. H. P. Deasy and M. S. Wellby; by the American W. W. Rockhill; the Frenchmen J. L. Dutreuil de Rhins, F. Grenard, P. G. Bonvalot and Prince Henri d’Orléans; by the Hungarians L. von Loczy and Count Szechényi; and above all by the Swede Sven Hedin.
Western Kuen-lun.—On the east the Pamir highlands are fenced off from the East Turkestan lowlands by the double border-ridge of Sarik-kol (the Sarik-kol range and the Muztagh or Kashgar range), which has its eastern foot down in the Tarim basin (4000–4500 ft.) and its western up on the Pamirs at 10,500 to 13,000 ft. above sea-level, while its own summits, e.g. the Muztagh-ata (25,780 ft.), shoot up far above the limits of perpetual snow. This double border-ridge is continued east of the meridian of Yarkand or Yarkent (77° E.) by a succession of twin ranges, all running, though under different names, from the W.N.W. to the E.S.E. According to the investigations of F. Stoliczka and K. Bogdanovich, the same fossils occur in both sets of border ranges, in the Sarik-kol and in their eastward continuations, e.g. corals, Stromatophorae, Bryozoa, Atrypa reticularis, A. latilinguis and A. aspera, Spirifer verneuili, &c., and these the latter geologist assigns to the Devonian epoch. These eastward continuations of the double border-range of the Pamirs are the constituent ranges of the Kuen-lun proper. The names given to them are the Kilian or Kiliang, the Khotan and the Keriya Mountains in the more northerly range and the Raskem or Raskan, the Sughet and the Ullugh-tagh Mountains in the more southerly range. Although they all decrease in altitude from west to east, they nevertheless reach elevations of 19,000 ft., with individual peaks ascending some 2000–2500 ft. higher. From the East Turkestan lowlands on the north the ascent is very steep, and the passes across both sets of ranges lie at great altitudes; for example, the pass of Sanju-davan in the lower range is 16,325 ft. above sea-level, and the Kyzyl-davan, farther east, is 16,900 ft., while the Sughet-davan in the higher range is 17,825 ft. The latter range is separated from the Karakorum Mountains by the deeply trenched gorge of the Raskem or Yarkand-darya, while the deep glen of the Kara-kash or Khotan-darya intervenes between the upper (Sughet Mountains) and the lower (Kilian Mountains) border-ranges. Altogether this western extremity of the Kuen-lun system is a very rugged mountainous region, a consequence partly of the intricacy of the flanking ranges and spurs, partly of the powerful lateral compression to which they have been subjected, and partly of the great and abrupt differences in vertical elevation between the crests of the ranges and the bottoms of the deep, narrow, rugged glens between them. In the broad orographical disposition of the ranges there is considerable similarity between north Tibet and west Persia, in that in both cases the ranges are crowded together in the west, but spread out wider as they advance towards the east. To the two principal ranges in this part of the system F. Grenard, who accompanied J. L. Dutreuil de Rhins on his journey in 1890–1895, gives the names the Altyn-tagh and Ustun-tagh, though he names no less than six parallel ranges altogether. Now as Altyn-tagh[2] is an accepted, though in point of fact erroneous, name for Astin-tagh, it is clear that Grenard considers the main Kuen-lun ranges to be continued directly by the Astin-tagh.
From the transverse breach of the Keriya-darya (about 8112° E.) to that of the Kara-muren in the longitude of Cherchen (about 8512° E.) the parallel border-ranges of the Tibetan plateau trend to the E.N.E., and here occur in the lower or outer range the passes of Dalai-kurghan-art (14,290 ft.), Choka-davan, i.e. Littledale’s Chokur Pass (9530 ft.) and others at altitudes ranging from 8600 to
- ↑ In “Orographie des Kwen-lun,” in Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Erdkunde zu Berlin (1891).
- ↑ It is used, for instance, on the map of “Inner-Asien” (No. 62) of Stieler’s Hand-atlas (ed. 1905) and in the Atlas of the Russian General Staff. Etymologically the correct form is Astin-tagh or Astun-tagh, meaning the Lower or Nearer Mountains. Ustun-tagh, which appears on Stieler’s map as an alternative name for Altyn-tagh, means Higher or Farther Mountains, and though not used locally of any specific range, would be appropriately employed to designate the higher and more southerly of the twin border-ranges of the Tibetan plateau.
