52 



NATURE 



[May 20, 1875 



munication could, and almost certainly did, take place in 

 the following way. 



The crest of the spur of, the Ust Urt plateau, which 

 formed the southerly limit of the now desiccated gulf 

 Abouc^ir, is about fifty feet above the present level of 

 Lake Aral. Once filled up to that level, if the lake con- 

 tinued to receive more water than was evaporated from 

 its surface, /.<?. more than 3,400 cubic yards per second, 

 an overflow would take place into the country now tra- 

 versed by the channel called Uzboy, which has a gentle 

 «;lope to the south of less than four inches per mile.* It 

 is probable that the lands stretching from Uzboy west- 

 wards to the foot of the elevations encircling Karaboogas 

 would have been flooded. Perhaps at this high level 

 Aral may have discharged at its extreme north-western 

 point also, and have flooded the country stretching round 

 the northern foot of Ust Urt. On the north, it may have 

 topped the low transverse ridge which now divides the 

 northern and southern drainage. And if, in addition, the 

 level of the Caspian was at that time some few feet higher 

 than it now is, its waterspread would have advanced to 

 meet the overflow from Aral, and Ust Urt and its narrow 

 southern spurs, which run along the east shore of the 

 Caspian, would have been isolated among marshes and 

 shallow water. The classical geographers would thus 

 have had ample grounds for the description they have 

 handed down to us of the Sea of Hyrcania, as well as 

 good reason for giving but a single name to the water- 

 spread of the sea, since the separation of its basin from 

 that of Aral would have become evident only after the 

 fall of the level of this lake. 



Until the separation became evident, this Aralo-Caspian 

 Sea would have presented all those aspects which history 

 tells us it has had. As the level gradually fell in Lake 

 Aral, the inundated ground would become dryer ; and 

 in the first century of our era, as reported by the 

 Chinese, the banks of the "Western Sea" would have 

 been surrounded with great marshes. It may be doubted 

 whether the Palus Oxiana of Ptolemy and the Oxian 

 Marsh mentioned by Ammianus Marcellinus should be 

 placed in this locality ; but there is more probability that 

 the Sinus Scythicus of Mela is identical with Lake Aral 

 and its former southern marshy appendage, of which 

 Uzboy is the axis. 



The waterspread of such an Aralo-Caspian Sea would 

 have added an area of about 70,000 square miles to the 

 limits of the Caspian of to-day ; and the evaporation 

 from such a surface would have absorbed a supply from 

 the rivers then feeding Lake Aral of about 7,000 cubic 

 yards per second ; in other words, a volume of water 

 three-and-a-half times greater than that discharged by 

 the mouths of the Amu and the Syr together at the 

 present time. 



If it be considered that at this epoch the greater, if not 

 indeed the entire volume of the Oxus passed directly 

 westwards into the Caspian, the difficulty is somewhat 

 increased in finding an answer to the important question, 

 where the large volume of water mentioned came from ? 



However, it is very probable that the Tchuy and the 

 Sary Su discharged at that time into Lake Aral, instead 

 of losing themselves, as they now do, in the sand. The 

 Kenderlik of the great Russian chart, as well as the 

 Demons, the Baskatis, and the Araxetes of the classics, 

 together no doubt with many other minor streams, have 

 disappeared in these countries, though their waters for- 

 merly would have fed Aral. Their disappearance seems 

 to have been contemporaneous with the desiccation of the 

 Oxus branch of the Caspian, at an epoch when those 

 irruptions of Mongol hordes from the north-east were 

 taking place, which swept away early Central Asian 

 civilisation, and which subsequently caused the destruc- 

 tion of the Greco-Bactrian Monarchy. Whether this ruin 

 of ancient social culture was accompanied by the destruc- 

 * See Nature, vol. xi. p. 231. 



tion and wreck of a system of hydraulic works which were 

 necessary for the cultivation of the soil, is a question 

 whose answer possibly bears very nearly on the causes of 

 the desolation which Nature now wears in the countries 

 of Western Turkestan, Herbert Wood 



THE COMMONS EXPERIMENTS ON 

 ANIMALS BILL 



THE Bill for the prevention of cruelty in experiments 

 on animals, made for the purpose of scientific dis- 

 covery, prepared and brought forward by Mr. Lyon Play- 

 fair, Mr. Spencer Walpole, and Mr. Evelyn Ashley, is of a 

 very different character from that introduced by Lord 

 Hartismere in the House of Lords and commented on 

 in our last issue (Nature, vol. xii. p. 21). In it no legis- 

 lative interference is proposed in the case of operations 

 performed for scientific purposes under the influence of 

 anaesthetics, provided that the insensibihty is continued 

 throughout the experiment ; immediately after which the 

 animal is to be killed if it has been in any way seriously 

 injured. In the case of operations performed on animals 

 in which it is impossible to employ anaesthetics, it is pro- 

 posed that those who wish to conduct them shall be re- 

 quired to obtain a license authorising their undertaking 

 them, to obtain which from the Secretary of State a certi- 

 ficate must be produced signed by one at least of the 

 following persons, viz, : the President of the Royal 

 Society, or the Presidents of the Royal Colleges of Phy- 

 sicians or Surgeons of London, Edinburgh, or Dublin ; 

 and also by a Professor of Physiology, Medicine, or 

 Anatomy in Great Britain. In the case of the applicant 

 being himself one of the just-named professors, or an 

 authorised lecturer on the same subjects, such a certifi- 

 cate is not to be required, but in its place his application 

 would have to be signed by the registrar, president, princi- 

 pal, or secretary of the university or college with which he is 

 connected. The license requires renewal each five years, 

 except in the case of professors, with whom it lasts during 

 their tenure of office. It extends to any person assisting 

 the holder of the license, provided that the person assist- 

 ing acts in the presence and under the direction of the 

 holder of the license. 



The penalty proposed for any contravention of the Act 

 is a fine not exceeding fifty pounds, or imprisonment for 

 a term not exceeding three months. 



The whole tenour of this Bill is so much in accordance 

 with our own feelings that we can say nothing against it. 

 Physiological operations on the lower animals, when con- 

 ducted under the full influence of anaesthetics, cannot 

 shock the most sensitive-minded ; and supposing the Bill 

 passes, it will be in the power of all to see that nothing 

 of a painful nature is undertaken. No definition of what 

 is meant by pain is given, it is true ; and the only im- 

 provement we can suggest is that one be added which 

 prevents the employment of curare as an anaesthetic until 

 its pain-killing power is demonstrated. 



BALLOONING AND SCIENCE 



THE number of aeronautical ascents in France has 

 been greatly increased since the Zenith catastrophe 

 attracted public notice to aerial questions. On Sunday, 

 the 9th of May, not less than three different balloons went 

 up in different places. 



These ascents took place at Ivry, close to Paris, at 5.30,- 

 at Nantes at 5.40, and at Algiers at 3.45. In the 

 three cases the balloonists experienced a change in 

 the direction of the wind, varying greatly with altitude. 

 The general direction of the Nantes balloon was 

 south-east. The Paris balloon had a less velocity with 

 a greater number of circuits, having ultimately run" 

 a distance of ten miles in two hours. The greatest 

 velocity of the air was in close vicinity to the earth ;• 

 this is an indication of a special current probably pro- 



