594 



CASPIAN SEA. 



raspian great as that which is assigned to it by this geogra- 

 Sea ' pher ; for it was now separated from the lake of 

 Aral, and had long ceased to have any communica- 

 tion with the sea of Azof. With even the latter of 

 these seas, however, as has been already remarked, 

 some indications of its early junction are still to be 

 found in ancient authors, who both assign to the sea 

 of Azof a greater extent than it now has, and take 

 notice of marshes and lakes to the eastward of it, 

 which have been gradually disappearing, but of which 

 the traces are not even yet entirely lost, and of the 

 origin of which no more plausible account can be 

 given, than that they are the remains of one uniform 

 sheet of water, which at a former period covered all 

 the district of country, of which, as its vestiges and 

 remembrancers, these now occupy such detached por- 

 tions.* 



Form and Notwithstanding the early attention which this 

 extent. sea se ems to have received, it does not yet appear, 

 that any of the ancient authors that have been 

 named, or others who have left any statements rela- 

 tive to it, succeeded in determining even nearly its 

 true form and extent. It was not apparently even as- 

 certained, whether its greatest length was from north 

 to south, or from east to west. So much, indeed, 

 was this point misunderstood, that, in the ancient 

 maps which illustrate the geography of Ptolemy, it 

 is delineated as if its greatest length extended from 

 east to west. In modern times, the first considerable 

 information obtained in Europe concerning the true 

 form of the Caspian, was furnished by Anthony Jen- 

 kinson, an English merchant, who, with a caravan 

 from Russia, travelled along a considerable part of 

 its coast in the year 1588. The accuracy of his de- 

 scription was confirmed by an actual survey of that 

 sea, made by order of Peter the Great, A. D. 1718, 

 when it was found to be in length about 1100 versts 

 from the mouth of the Ural to the coast of Mazande- 

 ran : its greatest width, from the mouth of the Terek 

 to the extremity of the bay of Mertvoi Kultyuk, be- 

 ing 8, rather more than 700 versts ; and the mea- 

 surement in other situations more to the southward 

 yarying with the position : in one place it was found 

 to be 6, or somewhat more than 525 versts ; in an- 

 other it was 2 35', or 225 versts. The circumfe- 

 rence of the sea, comprehending the great gulfs, but 

 excluding the little sinuosities, is stated at 4180 versts. 

 Whatever may be, in other respects, concluded con- 

 cerning the ancient limits of the Caspian, it will at 

 least hardly admit of doubt, that the chain of moun- 

 tains which branches from the west of .the Ural to 

 the north of Orenburg, and reaches to the Volga, 



Caspian 

 Sea. 



must in all ages have restricted it towards the north. 

 In an eastern direction, the elevated level which now 

 presents itself between this sea and the Aral, may S "*"Y" 

 have taken its rise from the quantity of sand rol- 

 led down by the Gihon, the Sirr, and other rivers 

 that still flow into the latter sea. 



Of the coasts of the Caspian as they now stand, Coasts, 

 the following is a very brief and general delinea- 

 tion. Towards the north, from the river Terek, 

 in a westerly direction, as far as the eastern extre- 

 mity of the bay of Mertvoi Kultyuk, the shores are 

 low, flat, swampy, and overgrown with reeds ; the 

 water, too, is shallow, and the air, being generally 

 hazy, it may be difficult often for those who have 

 occasion to navigate this part of the sea, to dis- 

 tinguish clearly the places, by which, as a sort of 

 landmarks, it would be useful for them to direct their 

 progress. On the other shores, from the Terek to 

 the desert of Korgan, near Astrabad, and from the 

 northern part of the bay of Balkan to that of Mert- 

 voi Kultyuk, the country generally is mountainous, 

 the shores bold, and the water very deep ; so much 

 so, indeed, that even in the vicinity of the shore a 

 line of 450 fathoms will not reach to the bottom. 



The ports of the Caspian Sea.may be divided into Pdm. 

 the Russian, the Persian, and the Tartar ports. 

 The Russian are, 1. ASTKACAN, (a full account of 

 which has already been given under that word.) 

 The principal of the commodities that are forwarded 

 from Astracan to the ports of the Caspian Sea, are 

 Dutch, French, Silesian, and English cloths, vi- 

 triol, soap, alum, sugar, Russian leather and linens, 

 needles, velvet, glass-ware, paper, a few furs, hides, a 

 little tea, corn, butter, wine, brandy, wooden vessels 

 for household uses, sea-horse teeth, iron, copper, tin, 

 lead, iron-ware, clocks, indigo, cochineal, looking- 

 glasses, and cotton stuffs. The most considerable 

 articles of its importation, are silk, chiefly in a raw 

 estate, from Shirvan and Ghilan, lamb skins from 

 Bucharia, rice, dried fruits, coffee, wine, spices, saf- 

 fron, drugs, a little salt, sulphur, and naphtha. The Russian 

 Indians, and the merchants of Khiva, bring to it P orts> 

 occasionally, also gold and silver in ingots and bars, 

 gold-dust, precious stones, and pearls.-]-- The second 

 of the Russian ports is Gurief, which is situated at 

 the exit of the Ural, and near to a bay which occurs 

 in that part of the Caspian. There is here a strong 

 fortress, by which the frontiers of the empire are 

 guarded in the direction of the territory of the Kir- 

 ghese Tartars. There are in the town scarcely 100 

 houses. Besides the garrison, almost the only inha- 

 bitants are a few Armenian merchants from Astra* 



* Professor Pallas considers the actual junction between the Caspian and the Euxine Seas to have been formed by a strait, 

 which communicated on each side with the anciently extended limits of those seas. " It is very probable," says he, " nay 

 almost beyond a doubt, that the low countries of Ulagann-Ternik, Alabuga, and Byeloe, are the old bed of the strait, which, 

 agreeably to the hypothesis advanced in the third part of my former journey, united the Caspian Sea with that of Azof. Even 

 at this day the Caspian Sea, when swelled by tempests, easily overflows the extensive low countries before mentioned. The 

 sand hills which at present separate these low countries from the Manytsh, manifestly originate from the sand banks thrown 

 up by the Caspian Sea, and which are carried by the wind into the steppe ; or, perhaps, they were in some degree formed by 

 the sand that remained in the strait itself, as they occupy only a small tract between the two vallics. These sands have also 

 choked up the passage at the mouth of the large river Kuma, which formerly had a free current into the CaspianSea, by 

 the gulf of the same name." Pallas's Travels through the Southern Provinces of the Russian Empire, in the years 1793 and 

 1794, vol. i. p. 296.; see also p. 302. 



f In 1775, the value of the cloth sent from this port to those of the Caspian amounted to L. 52,600, the cochineal to 

 L. 1 5,600, and the indigo to L 7000. The amount of the imports, in raw and manufactured vsilks, chiefly the former, is sta- 

 ted at L. 43,800. 



