408 COSMOS. 



so that an drea of elevation borders on an area of depression, 

 and that at this bordering-line large and deeply penetrating 

 fissures and rents are produced — it may be supposed that in 

 the central Asiatic zone, between the parallels of 41° and 

 48°, the great Aralo-Caspian area of depression, as well as 

 the large number of lakes, whether disposed in ranges or 

 otherwise, between the Thian-shan and the Altai-Kurts- 

 chura, may have given rise to littoral phenomena. We 

 know from tradition that many small basins now ranged in 

 a row, like a string of beads {lacs a chapelet), once upon a 

 time formed a single large basin. Many large lakes are seen 

 to divide and form smaller ones from the disproportion be- 

 tween precipitation and evaporation. A very experienced 

 observer of the Kirghis Steppe, General Genz of Orenburg, 

 has conjectured that there formerly existed a water commu- 

 nication between the Sea of Aral, the Aksakal, the Sary- 

 Kupa, and the Tschagli. A great furrow is observed, run- 

 ning from southwest to northeast, which may be traced by 

 the way of Omsk, between Irtisch and Obi, through the 

 steppe of Barabinsk, which abounds in lakes, toward the 

 moory plains of the Saraoiedes, toward Beresow and the 

 shore of the Arctic Ocean. With this furrow is probably 

 connected the ancient and wide-spread tradition of a Bitter 

 Lake (called also the Dried Lake, Hanhai), which extended 

 eastward and southward from Hami, and in which a por- 

 tion of the Gobi, whose salt and reedy centre was found by 

 Dr. von Bunge's careful barometrical measurement to be only 

 2558 feet above the level of the sea, rose in the form of an 

 island.* It is a geological fact, which has not hitherto re- 

 ceived its due share of attention, that seals, exactly similar to 

 those which inhabit the Caspian Sea and the Baikal in shoals, 

 are found upward of 400 miles to the east of the Baikal, in 

 the small fresh-water lake of Oron, only a few miles in cir- 

 cumference. The lake is connected with the Witim, a tribu- 

 tary of the Lena, in which there are no seals.f The present 

 isolation of these animals and their distance from the mouth 

 of the Volga (fully 3600 geographical miles) form a remark- 

 able geological phenomenon, indicative of an ancient and ex- 

 tensive connection of waters. Can it be that the numerous 



* Klaproth, Asia Polyghtta, p. 232, and Memoires relati/s d VAsie 

 (fj-om the Chinese Encyclopedia, published by command of the Em- 

 peror Kanghi, in 1711), t, ii., p. 342; Humboldt, Asie Centrale, t. ii., 

 p. 125 and 135-143. 



t Pallas, Zoographia Rosso-Asiatica, 1811, p. 115. 



