388 



GEOGRAPHICAL EXPLORATIONS AND DISCOVERIES IS" 1863. 



Tiflis, the capital, has 60,776 inhabitants ; Sha- 

 machi, in the province of Baku, has 25,148 in- 

 habitants ; Shusha, in the same province, 20,- 

 297; and Mucha, also in the same province, 

 20,533. Stavropol has 17,363, Jeisk 16,747, Al- 

 exandropol 14,395, Elizabethpol 15,191, Achal- 

 zich 14,723, Baku 13,392, and Erivan 12,170. 

 No other towns in the government reach a 

 population of 12,000, and the entire town pop- 

 ulation is but 349,512. 



The residences of the people are thus classi- 

 fied : cities and large towns 35, market-towns 

 9, colonies 15, villages 1,113, hamlets 6,838, 

 Cossack stations 274, isolated farms 3,759, no- 

 madic encampments 2,639. Lieut. -Col. Steb- 

 nitzky has of late been engaged upon the orog- 

 raphy of the Caucasus, and has reported the 

 results of his exploration of the eastern portion 

 of the Trans-Kubanian district bordering on 

 the Black Sea. He has ascertained the height 

 of thirteen points above the level of the Black 

 Sea. This portion of the Caucasus is not of so 

 great elevation as the northern and southern 

 districts. The highest point recorded by him 

 was the summit of the Pssegashka Pass, which 

 is 7,088 feet above the Black Sea. The northern 

 summits of the Caucasus range are much high- 

 er, some of them rising from 19,000 to 20,000 

 feet. 



M. Yiskovatow, a Russian geographer, has 

 been for some years exploring this range, and 

 has recently given before the Imperial Geograph- 

 ical Society of Petersburg an interesting account 

 of the glacier of Devdorak, which descends from 

 Mount Kasbek, one of the loftier peaks of the 

 range, toward the defile of Terek. This defile is 

 the only passage which can be traversed between 

 the northern Caucasus and the lower Trans- 

 Caucasian range, and is known as the military 

 road of Georgia. The small river Devdorak 

 has its source in the glacier, and falls into the 

 Terek. The ice, snow, earth, and rocks de- 

 scend from the lower borders of this glacier in 

 frequent avalanches, and obstruct often for 

 months with their debris the defile of Terek, 

 sometimes blocking it up for a distance of 

 twenty-five or thirty miles. From 1780 to 1830 

 there were six of these avalanches, and the 

 periods which elapsed between them were quite 

 regular. Since 1830 there had been but one, 

 in 1852 ; and M. Viskovatow believes this to be 

 owing to the receding of the glacier, which is 

 smaller than formerly. Dr. Gustav Radd^p, a 

 German naturalist, explored this part of the 

 Caucasus in 1864, and has published an inter- 

 esting account of its flora and fauna ; and has 

 also added to our knowledge of its river sys- 

 tems and the character of its mountains. 



Mention has been made, in previous volumes 

 of the ANNTJAI. CYCLOPAEDIA, of the commission 

 appointed by the Russian Government, to ascer- 

 tain the present condition of the Sea of Azof, 

 and the extent and causes of its increasing 

 Bhallowness. M. Danilevski was put at the 

 head of this commission, and although his in- 

 vestigations are not completed, he has made a 



partial report, in which ho announces, among 

 others, the following conclusions: That the 

 filling up of the sea is not so great as had been 

 represented ; but that it proceeds from two 

 causes, the gradual elevation of the shores and 

 bottom of the sea from geological changes, and 

 the large quantity of silt brought down by the 

 Kouban River, in its rapid descent from the 

 Caucasus. The Don and the other rivers dis- 

 charging their waters into the Sea of Azof, add 

 very little to these deposits of sand. The delta 

 of the Kouban has in the course of eight or ten 

 centuries been transformed into several islands 

 and a peninsula, and the process of upheaval 

 has given to these islands a considerable height. 



In Turkestan, the Russian power is ever 

 pushing its way eastward. It has already ab- 

 sorbed nearly the whole of what formerly con- 

 stituted Independent Turkestan Khokand and 

 its principal cities, Khokand and Tashkend, 

 being its latest acquisitions, while at the east- 

 ern portion of Chinese Tartary, as well as along 

 its western boundaries, it is constantly ex- 

 tending their forts and stations, and ere long 

 will undoubtedly exercise its sway over the 

 whole of this vast territory. That this will 

 prove of great advantage, both to the inhabit- 

 ants of these regions, and to the rest of the 

 world, cannot be doubted, for the Russian ad- 

 ministration is just and enlightened, and will 

 be favorable to the development of the country. 

 M. Charles Struve (son of the astronomer) 

 explored, during the autumn of 1864, the Tar- 

 bagatai chain of mountains, and portions of the 

 basin of the Tzaizan and the Irtish. He re- 

 ports that the Kirghiz Tartars of that region, 

 "hitherto wholly nomadic in their habits, have 

 commenced the establishment of fixed villages, 

 probably with reference to the Russian occu- 

 pation. 



Rear- Admiral A. Boutakoff, in 1863 and 

 1864, explored very thoroughly the whole navi- 

 gable course of the Jaxartes, or Syr-Daria, a 

 distance of above a thousand miles. The whole 

 region bordering on this river is fertile, and 

 would be productive if it was under Russian 

 sway, for the only bar to its cultivation has 

 been the frequent raids of the savage Kirghiz 

 and other nomadic tribes. 



M. Anatole J. Sponville, a French engineer 

 who has spent the greater part of 1864, and 

 the winter and spring of 1865, among the Sibe- 

 rian Kirghiz of the region north of the Syr- 

 Daria, has given in the Bulletin de la Societe de 

 la Geographic a full account of the habits, 

 manners, and customs of these nomadic tribes ; 

 and M. H. de Blocqueville, a French geogra- 

 pher, who has been engaged in an exploration 

 of Turkestan, has, in the same journal, described 

 the character and manners of the Turcomans, 

 who are allied to the Kirghiz not only in jace, 

 but in their lawless and nomadic disposition, 

 and has accompanied it by a good map of South- 

 ern Turkestan. M. Severtsow, a Russian geog- 

 rapher, has been engaged for some years in an 

 exploration of the western Thian-chan chain 



