98 M. Boussingault un the Effect of clearing' Land 



The water was about 120 feet below the level of its abrupt 

 margin. 



It happened that I, too, found myself in the neighbourhood 

 of this same lake in the month of November 1831. It cannot 

 be compared to any thing so accurately as to a crater, the 

 bottom of which is filled with water. I found that it was ele- 

 vated 11,800 feet above the level of the sea, and hence was in 

 the cold region. It is surrounded with immense pasture- 

 grounds, and 1500 feet below it there are the sheep-folds of 

 Piliputzin. To the east, the Cordillera which descends to- 

 wards the coast is covered with forests which are almost unknown. 

 The information which the shepherds who live in its vicinity 

 gave us had little in it of the marvellous so often associated 

 with it. They had never witnessed any flames issue from its 

 waters ; nor had they ever heard any detonations. The result 

 of my excursion to this lake was the observation, that all things, 

 so far as level was concerned, were in the state they had been 

 at the epoch of M. de la Condamine's visit. 



The study of the lakes which are so numerous in Asia, 

 will probably lead to a result, in every respect conformable to 

 that which has been deduced from the observation made in 

 South America, viz. that the streams which water a country 

 diminish in proportion as the clearing of it advances, and its 

 cultivation extends. The recent labours of M. de Humboldt, 

 who has supplied so much valuable information on this portion 

 of the globe, seem to leave little doubt on this point. After 

 having shewn that the system of the Altai range extends by a 

 succession of hiUs, into the Steppe of Kirghiz, and that, con- 

 sequently, the Oural chain is not connected with that of the 

 Atlai, as has been generally supposed ; this celebrated geo- 

 grapher demonstrates, that precisely at the place where we 

 have been in the habit of placing the Alghinic mountains, a 

 remarkable region of lakes commences which are continued 

 into the plains which are traversed by the rivers Ichim, Omsk, 

 and Ob. (See his Fragmens Asiatiques, t. i.) It might not be 

 too much to say that these numerous lakes are the residue of the 

 evaporation of a vast mass of water, which, in ancient times, 

 covered the whole country, and which has been broken up into 

 so many separate lakes, by the configuration of the surface. In 



