222 HISTORY OF THE EUROPEAN FAUNA. 



present, and joined to the Sea of Aral and the Black 

 Sea, is acknowledged by everybody. That the 

 deposits laid down by this huge inland sea reach 

 as far north as the shores of the river Kama, in 

 Central Russia, is also well known to geologists. 

 But what comes rather as a surprise, is that Professor 

 Karpinski, whom we must take as one of the highest 

 authorities on the geology of Russia, asserts that this 

 Aralo-Caspian Sea was probably joined by a system 

 of lakes or channels to the Arctic Ocean (p. 183). He 

 was by no means the first, though, to put forward 

 such a theory. We have already learned that Professor 

 Brandt held a somewhat similar view, though he 

 believed in something more than a connection by 

 mere channels, and Mr. Koppen, and also the Russian 

 traveller Mr. Kessler, agreed with him. So much 

 was Professor Boyd Dawkins impressed with their 

 arguments at the time, that he wrote (c, p. 148) : 

 " Before the lowering of the temperature in Central 

 Europe, the sea had already rolled through the low 

 country of Russia, from the Caspian to the White 

 Sea and the Baltic, and formed a barrier to western 

 migration to the Arctic mammals of Asia" 



In one particular Professor Dawkins's views differ 

 from those of almost all the previous writers. His 

 connection between the Caspian and the Arctic 

 Ocean is placed to the west of the Ural Mountains, 

 while it had always been assumed by the Russian 

 writers to have lain on the eastern or Asiatic side of 

 that mountain range. Thus, when Tcherski in recent 



