52 ANIMAL LIFE IN DESERTS 



into all of which rivers run from the surrounding 

 uplands without ever making a sheet of water in 

 the centre. Other closed basins, without outlet to 

 the ocean but with inland seas or lakes into which 

 they drain, are those of the Dead Sea and Jordan 

 Valley ; the Caspian with the Mugan Steppe and 

 the steppes of 'the Volga and Transcaspia ; the 

 Sea of Aral with the Oxus and Jaxartes Rivers 

 and the great plain of Russian Turkestan ; the 

 Shotts (Chotts) of Southern Algeria and Southern 

 Tunisia ; the Great Salt Lake in the State of Utah ; 

 Death Valley and the Salton Sea in California ; 

 and the Lake Eyre basin in Central Australia. All 

 of these areas are desert, and the Dead Sea, the 

 Caspian, the Sea of Aral, Death Valley, Salton 

 Lake, and Lake Eyre are all beneath mean sea-level. 



