On the Comparative Level of Lakes and Seas, 329 . 



summer, sometimes lose themselves in a lake of tlie Steppe, without ever 

 reaching the Caspian Sea. Still farther on, at the northern extremity of 

 the ridge, the bifurcated Kalaiis takes its rise.* This last river, whose 

 course is very variable, commingles its waters with those of the Manetch, 

 an affluent of the Don. It is even regarded as the principal source of 

 the western Manetch. Another branch of the Kalaiis proceeds to the 

 eastern Manetch, and spreads out near to Gouidouc, a post-station on 

 the road from Astrakhan to Tiflis, into a large lake which the Kal- 

 mucs call by the name of Kokoussoun. The conformation of the district, 

 which gently undulates along the Manetch, and to the north of the Kouma, 

 is vQvy remarkable. The course ©f the Manetch or Manytch is 500 versts 

 in lengtli ; its fall is so trifling that, according to the testimony of General 

 Bogdanovitch, who has examined its windings, its waters during the 

 summer actually follow the direction of the wind. The river at the pre- 

 sent time does not throughout the upper course approximate nearer than 

 70 versts to the weedy shores of the Caspian Sea ; and yet, without 

 doubt, it was in this part of the Kalmuc Steppe, we must suppose, that, 

 previous to those times we designate historical, a communication exist- 

 ed between the basins of the Caspian and Black Seas. 



The work in which MM. Fuss, Sawitsch, and Sabler are about to de- 

 scribe the district which has been the theatre of their very careful geo- 

 dsesical labours, will shed new light on these views, several of which may 

 appear to be rash. I shall here limit myself to the statement of a very 

 curious fact which, according to the report of some of the natives who 

 seem worthy of credit, was received by M. Parrot at Gouidouc, namely, 

 that there existed, in times quite modern, a communication between the 

 eastern Manetch and the Caspian Sea. All these facts, however, render 

 it highly probable, that, in ancient times, previous to the time when i\\Q 

 sand embankments andthe downs, accumulated by the winds, had changed 

 the surlace of the soil ; and, previous to the sea of Asov being restricted 

 to its present limits, a strait or natural canal had conducted the waters of 



at the embouchure of the Terek and the Tumen,near which was situated the fortress 

 of Terki, which was constructed under the Czars Michel Feodorovitch and Alexi- 

 Michailovitch, and destroyed by the orders of Peter the Great in the year 1722. 

 The site of this fortress has since been entirely covered by the Caspian Sea ; a 

 phenomenon the more extraordinary, that at the same epoch the waters of this 

 sea apparently sank at the custom-house of Astrakhan, and towards the mouths 

 of the Volga. See the Memoir of M. Hamel, Sur un expedition mineralogiquc au 

 Caucase, faite in 1628, sur Ics auspices du Czar Michel Feodorovitch. 



* Parrot, 7?cwc zum Ararat, T. ii. p. 12-25, and p. 33-36. The waters of the Kouban, 

 the legorlik, and the eastern Manetch, flow to the Black Sea ; those of the Terek 

 and of the Kouma to the Caspian Sea. The Kalaiis forms, by its bifurcation, to 

 the west, the western Manetch, which dilates into a salt lake (the lake Manetch), 

 and receives the legorlik before it reaches the Don. The eastern branch of the 

 Kalaiis, v/hich merits a more special examination, seems to form the eastern Ma- 

 netch. The river Kouma does not in all seasons reach as far as the Caspian, often 

 terminating in summer in a fresh-wftter lake, the lake of larligor. 



