The Crescent Spring at the Soughing Sand Hill, lying some 5 kilometers away to the southwest of the city of Dunhuang, is a mysterious landscape in the desert. Embraced all round by sand dunes a spring lake emerges with a pool of crystal water in their embrace. As it looks very like a new moon hence the name the Crescent Spring Lake. The Soughing Sand Hill, featuring a slope as though cut out, has soft, round and colorful sand-grains which go down soughing along with climbers and resumes as they used to be after a wind at night.
Stretching 240 meters in length and 39 meters in width with a depth of 2 meters the water side is grown with reeds and weeds, and in the water are seen some fish known as iron-plate, and seven-leaved water-weeds. The Crescent Spring becomes a marvel of nature for the “spring mirrors the moon with no dirt and silt nor will it be filled up by sand and dry up ever since ancient times” and with its shape looking like a new moon hence the name the Crescent Spring.

Cited from:(Han Rongliang & Han Zhiyu (2006). Guide to Gansu [M].Beijing: China Travel and Tourism Press)