4 Records of the Indian Museum. [Vor,. XVIII, 
little over 2} inches a year,’ and there are no permanent affluent 
streams. Seistan is a well-watered country, but its water-supply, 
like that of Egypt, depends not on local rainfall but on the 
rainfall and the snows in a mountainous region many miles away. 
The fact that, unlike most of the lake-systems of Central Asia 
and Persia, that of the Hamun-iSeistan has not dried up is 
to be explained only by the peculiar course of the Helmand, the 
greater part of which traverses comparatively damp mountainous 
country. 
The Hamun, however, is not the final repository of the 
soluble matter which the river inevitably brings into it. If it 
had been so, with its limited area, all its water would have been 
salt long ago. On maps of Persia and the adjacent countries a 
river, named the Shelagh (or Shila) river, is marked running 
southwards and eastwards from the Hamun into another basin, the 
Gaud-i-Zirreh, which occupies a very large area in the great desert 
of south-western Afghanistan. This is the Dead Sea of the 
| The following tables of rainfall (in inches) are derived from official 
sources :— 
ig | 
S ee 
4 : ¢ [aa ; =e ee 
Season. 3 : E Sell Sige 3 iy | 3 
© 3 = iS D mn Es op 
=) ates = is D = O) = a 
OQ O a5 DG op) & Siac) 
October to March sot E750 sOROO et eGi ae OediG al 2206 | SOL 79S ames 
April.to September... | 2°40 | 1°72) O°81 |.3°40 |\"0745 |) 374107! 1 -G25 i aiees 
TOTAL we | O'45- | 9°78! | 5°32 11°85 | 2°51 | 8:50" 1) Osha aaeam 
RAINFALL AT NASRATABAD, SEISTAN. 
Month 1902 190 190 1905 Total Avera sia 
; phils 2e3: Oe DoE ; month. 
January aaa a: 1°46 0°60 0°44 2°50 0°83 
February seul Notane= | 
corded. 0°42 O'15 o'28 | 0°85 0°28 
March As be 0°07 o'19 ORV wa56 o'51 
April Aa 0°03 I‘19Q ia aA Te22 O’4i 
May a6 a 0°05 sia ae 0°05 002 
June a ate | 0:07 Stic =o) |, O07 ee 
July ae 
August 
September a a um Sn sek Age vee 
October By o'2 me rae a |) 0727, 0°09 
November es O'17 0°07 0°06 ve 0°30 o'Lo 
December $i 0'60)7 ||; org oO'ol as O'74 O25 
ToTAL re 1°07 || s4326 L‘OI 1°09 7°43 2°95! 
