416 REACTION OF THE INTERIOR OF THE EARTH 



chapelet) were. once part of a single large basin. We 

 still see larger lakes become subdivided into smaller 

 ones, by reason of the existing disproportion between 

 the amount of water falling in the shape of rain or 

 snow and the amount withdrawn by evaporation. An 

 observer well acquainted with the Kirghis steppe, 

 General Genz in Orenburg, thought that there once 

 existed a water-communication between the Sea of Aral, 

 the Aksakal, Sary-Kupa, and Tschagli. We can re- 

 cognise a great furrow, running from south-west to 

 north-east, traceable beyond Omsk between the Irtysch 

 and the Obi, through the steppe of Barabinski with 

 its numerous lakes, towards the moory plains of the 

 Samoieds, Beresow, and the shore of the Icy Sea. 

 We may perhaps connect with this furrow the old and 

 widely prevalent tradition of a "Bitter Sea" (also 

 called the "Dried-up Sea," Hanhai), which extended 

 eastward and southward from Kami, and in which a 

 part of Gobi, of which the salt and reedy centre has 

 been recently found by the exact barometric measure 

 ments of Dr. von Bunge to be only 2558 feet above the 

 level of the sea, rose as an island. ( 57 ) Seals, quite 

 similar to those which inhabit the Caspian and the 

 Baikal in troops, are found (and this is a geological fact 

 which has not yet received the attention it deserves) in 

 the little fresh-water lake of Oron, situated more than 

 400 geographical miles east of Lake Baikal. The lake 

 of Oron, which is only some miles in circumference, is 

 connected with the river Witim, a tributary of the 

 Lena, in which no seals live.( 571 ) The present isolated 

 position of these animals, their distance from the mouth 

 of the Volga (fully 3600 geographical miles), is a very 



