ARAGUAYA. 



ARAL, SEA OF. 



430 



Diccionario de Espana ; Ford's Handbook of Spain; Zurita, Anales 

 lie Aragon ; Art de Vfrijier Its Dates.) 



ARAGUAYA, one of the largest and most important rivers in 

 the interior of Brazil, though up to the present time it is not much 

 navigated, because the countries along its banks are unreclaimed 

 except at a few isolated places. It divides the province of Goyaz, 

 which lies east of it, from Matto Grosso, which extends west of its 

 course. It rises in the Serra de Santa Martha, south of 18 S. lat., 

 in a lake, and runs under the name of Cayapo about 180 miles, when 

 it unites with the Rio Claro, which traverses the town of Villa Boa, 

 the capital of Goyaz, and takes the name of Araguaya. Continuing in 

 a northern direction to about 12 30' S. lat., the river divides into two 

 branches, which do not re-unite until 9 30'. The island which is thus 

 formed is called Una de Santa Anna or Bannanal. It is more than 

 200 miles long, and at an average 30 miles wide, so that it covers a 

 surface of more than 6000 square miles. The western arm of the 

 river preserves the name of Araguaya, whilst the eastern is called 

 Furo. The latter is most used by the boats bound from Villa Boa to 

 Para ; and at a very few places on its shores the Portuguese settlers 

 have formed establishments, whilst none exist on the western arm. In 

 both arms some falls occur, but they are not considerable. After its 

 arms have re-united, the river runs to 6 S. lat., where it joins the 

 Tocantins. The whole course of the river probably does not fall much 

 short of 1000 miles, and it receives the waters of several navigable 

 tributaries south of 1 8. lat., among which the Vermelho and Crixa 

 from the right, and the Rio das Mortes and San Joao from the left, are 

 the largest. (Henderson's Hittory of Brazil.) 



AKAL, SEA OF, a great inland lake of Asia, situated east of the 

 Caspian Sea, between 43 and 47 N. lat., and 58 and 62 E. long. 

 The longitude of the western shore, in latitude 45 38' 30" has been 

 found t<> be 66 8' fi9" E. of Paris, or 58 29' 14" E. of Greenwich. 

 Its greatest length in about 290 miles from N. to S. ; its breadth from 

 K. to W. is irregular, but nowhere less than 130 miles : in some places 

 it i.-i 250 miles. In superficial extent it exceeds any lake in the eastern 

 hemisphere, except the Caspian and Lake Baikal Its depth is not 

 great, and it abounds so much in sand-banks near its shores, that the 

 Kirghiz fishermen, it* only navigators, are obliged to use flat-bottomed 

 boats. The southern extremity is studded with innumerable small 

 islands at the mouth of the Jihoon or Amoo, and from this circum- 

 stance it has received its name, Aral, which in the Tartar language 

 signifies ' island.' 



The water is salt, but no experiments appear as yet to have been 

 made to ascertain its specific gravity, and the nature of its saline 

 contents. A great diminution of the superficial extent of this sea 

 has taken place within a very recent period, and seems to be in 

 progress, and it would be interesting to know whether any corre- 

 sponding increase takes place in the saltness of its waters. Two rivers 

 of considerable magnitude discharge their waters into this lake ; the 

 Syr-darya or Sihun, the ancient laxartes, flows into it from the east ; 

 the Amoo-darya or Jihoon, the Oxus of the ancients, enters it from the 

 south. The lake, like the Caspian, has no outlet ; and the whole of 

 the water supplied by these rivers, as well as that of some minor 

 streams, must be carried off by evaporation. The evident proofs of a 

 gradual lowering of the level of the lake, which we shall afterwards 

 mention, show that the supply of water is not equal to the waste ; in 

 the heat of summer the evaporation from so vast an expanse must be 

 enormous, and the quantity poured in during this period must be 

 greatly diminished, for the two great rivers become fordable in 

 places where in the spring they are navigable, and the channels of 

 the streams which flow from the steppes on the north become quite dry. 



It has been ascertained that a large portion of this part of Asia is 

 depressed below the level of the ocean ; the Caspian Sea occupies the 

 lowest parts of .this depression. The trigonometrical survey made by 

 the Russian government in 1836-7, shows that the surface of the 

 Caspian is 84 feet lower than that of the Black Sea ; the relative differ- 

 ence of level of the Caspian and the Aral is stated (on the authority 

 of M.M. Diihamel and Anjou of the French navy, who made a series of 

 barometrical measurements across the isthmus between the two seas,) 

 to be 117 feet; so that the surface of the Aral is about 30 feet above 

 the level of the Black Sea. These results differ widely from the 

 conclusions formerly drawn by Parrot from barometrical observations, 

 Recording to which the levels of the Caspian and the Aral were set 

 down nt above 300 feet and 180 feet respectively below the surface of 

 the Black Sea. 



On the north of the Aral Lake is a wild hilly region, thinly 

 inhabited by half-civilised nomadic tribes, who are to be found all 

 round the lake, wherever an oasis in the desert enables man to II 

 The Monghodjar mountains, which occupy the highest part of these 

 steppe*, are a continuation of one of the groups into which the great 

 Ural chain divide* itself toward* its southern termination : the insu- 

 lated cone called Airouk, the highest point, is only 960 feet above its 

 base. The Urals in the neighbourhood of Orenburg are composed of 

 a red sandstone, and the same rock extends into the steppes of the 

 Kirghiz. Between Orenburg and the Monghodjar mountains the red 

 sandstone is replaced by a conglomerate composed of quartz pebbles 

 I by a quartzooe cement, and then passing into a white sandstone, 

 which contains a stratum of coal. The conglomerate is covered by a lime- 

 stone full of (hells, with sharks' teeth, many belemnites and ammonites, 



some of the latter two feet in diameter. Beds of gypsum are associated 

 with the limestone. The Monghodjar mountains are composed of the 

 sandstone associated with porphyry and greenstone. The hilly region 

 gradually sinks to sandy plains towards the south and east, no branch 

 of the Urals being prolonged so as to reach any part of the Altai 

 chain. These plains are composed of clay, marl, and calcareous tufa, 

 covered by loose sand, which is blown up into hillocks from 30 to 40 

 feet high, and the aspect of the country is thus changed after every 

 storm of wind. In these desert plains between the base of the hilly 

 region and the shores of the Aral are two ranges of low hills called 

 the Great and Little Burzuk ; the latter terminates in a promontory, 

 at the north-east angle of the lake, but the Great Burzuk extends con- 

 siderably westward. North-east of the Little Burzuk are some hills 

 composed of indurated marl full of marine shells, and the formation 

 extends to the shores of the lake. The hills of Aigur and Sari-bulak, 

 40 miles inland, are composed of it, and they seem to have been the 

 ancient shores of the lake. The northern sides of the hills, or those 

 sloping from the lake, are gradual and covered with shrubs ; but the 

 side of Sari-bulak next to the lake presents a face of naked marl 

 furrowed by torrents, with conical masses cut by precipitous sides 

 from 120 to 180 feet high, and the marl contains beds of shells and 

 fish bones, from 8 to 4 feet thick. " I mentioned to our Kirghisians," 

 says Baron Meyendorff, " the traces of water on Sari-bulak, and they 

 assured me that their fathers had seen the waters of the Anil Lake 

 extend to the foot of this hill, although it is at present 60 versts 

 distant from it. So great a. number of the Kirghisians have told me 

 the same thing that I consider it as an undoubted fact, and it proves 

 how very considerable, and at the same time how rapid, the diminution 

 of the waters of the Aral Lake has been. It continues to diminish ; 

 and one of our guides pointed out a place in our route, far inland, 

 which he himself remembered to have seen the waters reach." This 

 remarkable fact may be compared with the statement of Colonel 

 Monteith (' Royal Geographical Journal,' vol. Hi.), that during his 

 residence in that part of Asia from 1811 to 182S, the Caspian Sea, 

 " as well as every other lake in Persia, had decreased most sensibly 

 in depth." 



From the foot of the Monghodjar mountains to the banks of 

 the Syr-darya, a distance of more than 270 miles, not a single river 

 traverses the sandy desert, which is covered with a number of shallow 

 salt-water lakes, and has exactly the appearance of land from which 

 the sea has retreated. These lakes are in some places dried up, and 

 have left a cake of salt of dazzling whiteness, covering a surface of some- 

 times six or seven square miles. From the north-eastern part of the 

 Aral Lake to the mouth of the Syr-darya there is a great sandy desert 

 called Kara-Koum (Black Sand), which is in some places 175 miles 

 broad. The country along the banks of the Syr, and especially near 

 its mouth, is tolerably fertile, but that fertility is confined to a narrow 

 band between the desert of Kara-Koum on the north, and one no less 

 sterile on the south, the Kizil-Koum (Red Sand), which extends to 

 the banks of the Amoo-darya, an ocean of sand without one drop of 

 fresh water. The base of the Kizil-Koum is an argillaceous red sand- 

 stone, which in some places rises above the surface ; the plain is 

 covered with sandy hillocks rising from 12 to 60 feet, and the view 

 from the top of one of these is like looking over a stormy ocean 

 transformed into sand. 



The country between the Aral and the Caspian, the Turkman 

 isthmus, is 150 miles wide at its narrowest part. It consists of a 

 steppe or table-land more than 700 feet high, with steep sides towards 

 both seas. This table-land is called Usturt ; it is connected by the 

 Great Burzuk and the Monghodjar Mountains with the Ural Moun- 

 tains of Orenburg. The caravans between Astrakhan and Khiva, and 

 between Orenburg and Khiva, pass through this isthmus, the rou^e 

 to Orenburg lying along the shore of the Aral, and tho distance 

 between the two places being about 470 miles. The English traveller, 

 Thompson, who accompanied this caravan in 1740, describes the lake 

 as being bounded on the north-west by rocky cliffs. The northern 

 part of the Usturt is inhabited by the Kirghiz ; the centre by the 

 Turkmans ; and the south by the Khivalhis. Towards the south- 

 west the Usturt terminates in the Krasnovodo Mountains, which 

 connect it with the chain of the Balkan Mountains, on the 

 south-eastern shore of the Caspian Sea. It has been supposed that 

 the Aral Lake and the Caspian were at one time united; but the 

 elevation of the Usturt seems to render this supposition untenable. 

 And since the Usturt and the Monghodjar extremity of the Ural were 

 first raised to their present elevation, no river could possibly flow into 

 the Caspian from the Kirghiz steppe or from Central Asia. The 

 Greek geographers (who however were ignorant of the existence of 

 the Aral Sea) make the Oxus and the laxartes flow into the eastern 

 part of the Caspian. On this part of the subject the reader is further 

 referred to the articles on CASPIAN SKA and Oxus. 



In the vast steppes to the east and north-east of the Aral ^3ea there 

 is a large number of smaller seas or lakes, formed and supplied by 

 rivers, just as the Aral i formed by the Sihoou and the Jihoon. 



(Pallas' s Travels; Pander's Appendix to Meyendorff 's Tranli ; 

 Kephalides, De Itiftoria Mara Caspii ; Engelhordt und Parrot, Raise 

 in den Kaukasus; Meyendorff, To//"//" tfOroribwfff ft JJoukhara ; 

 Humboldt, Fragment Asialiques ; Eichwald's Atte Geogmpltie des 

 JKatpisclten Meeret ; Royal Geographical Journal, vols. vii. and x. 



