?66 



NA TURE 



[August 17, 1905 



AMERICAN RESEARCH IN ASIA.' 



""P HIS handsome publication is divided into six 

 A sections, Prof. Pumpelly describing the " archeo- 

 logical " and physicogeographical reconnaissance in 

 Turkestan, and 'Mr. R. W. Pumpelly the physio- 

 graphic observations on the Pamir; Prof. W. M. 

 Davis describes " a journey across Turkestan," and 

 Mr. Ellsworth Huntington deals with Central Turkes- 

 tan and with the basin of eastern Persia and Sistan. 



The expedition received the most friendly help from 

 the Russian authorities, and received its only check 

 in northern Afghanistan. The dominant factor in the 

 wide region examined appears to be its progressive 

 desiccation, whereby even the irrigation works of the 

 ancient races failed long ago to bring 

 in water from the streams. Every- 

 where there are signs of old vitality, 

 of great cities, and of peoples who 

 accumulated wealth by trade and 

 settled labour. Again and again, en- 

 vious invaders from the south, or east, 

 or west, have swept across the hollow- 

 lands between the mountains, and have 

 destroyed a civilisation in order to 

 enforce their own. The very sites of 

 the chief towns have shifted, and the 

 remains of the earlier settlements, 

 deeply buried, may afford a clue to 

 " the origin of Western and Eastern 

 civilisations." 



Prof. W. M. Davis, experienced in 

 grasping the significance of the sur- 

 face-features of a country, discusses 

 the former extension of the waters in 

 the Aralo-Caspian area. Particular 

 interest also attaches to his examina- 

 tion of the loess. Whatever the actual 

 origin of this finely divided material, 

 there is no doubt as to its distribution 

 and the moulding of its surface by 

 wind in the eastern provinces of Semir- 

 yetshenslc and Fergana (p. 63) — we 

 adopt the spelling of the text, and not 

 of the map which forms plate iii. Mr. 

 Huntington also observes loess in pro- 

 cess of formation in the Kashgar 

 plain, and refers it here to the spread- 

 ing out of very fine silt by water in 

 the flat floor of temporary and recur- 

 rent lakes. There is in reality no 

 contradiction between these views, 

 since most writers are agreed that the 

 material gathers first of all in the 

 plains by ordinary processes of denuda- 

 tion, and then undergoes further sift- 

 ing, the chief agent being the persis- 

 tent action of the wind. Sisian. 



Both these authors believe that the 

 Tian Shan mountains were worn down to a fairly 

 uniform surface after their principal folding had 

 occurred, and that they owe their present irregular 

 surface more to subsequent differential uplifts than to 

 denudation (pp. 73, So, 168, &c.). " Even in the lofty 

 Pamir there are certain ranges where the snowy peaks 

 are smoothly truncated, as though by the old pene- 

 plain, in spite of the fact that they are from 15,000 to 

 20,000 feet high." Prof. Davis seems not to insist on 

 so recent a date for the " peneplain " as does his 



1 " Explorations in Turkestan, with an Account of the Basin of Eastern 

 Persia and Sistan." Expedition of the Carnegie Institution of Washington 

 in 1903, under the direction of Raphael Pumpelly. Pp xii + 324 ; with map 

 plates, and figures in the text. (Washington : Carnegie Institution, 1905.) 



NO. 1868, VOL. 72] 



colleague, who brings forward conclusive evidence 

 that the whole Tertiary series of the district was 

 involved in the folding, and that the uniform degrada- 

 tion must be assigned to late Tertiary times. The 

 present development of the " peneplain " in Central 

 Turkestan seems, according to Mr. Huntington, due 

 to the formation of ridges and basins, without con- 

 spicuous faulting. Prof. Davis, on his part, lays 

 more stress on faults and "fault-blocks." Lateral 

 compression, he urges, has had little to do with the 

 raising of the block-ranges, to which our attention 

 is now for the first time directed in this area ; and he 

 proceeds, in consequence, to consider the bearing of 

 the Tian Shan ranges on Suess's views on horsts. 

 He justlv remarks (p. 82) that " forces of uplift are 



— Youngest Gorge of the Kboja Ishke 

 rom "Explorations in Turkestan, with 



still worthy of consideration "; and, being himself a 

 profound student of processes of denudation, he points 

 out that the surfaces of many horsts must have been 

 near sea-level before they were separated by disloca- 

 tion. After all, may we not be grateful to Suess 

 when we find discussions such as these arising 

 naturally in a work of travel, which might in some 

 hands have been a record of detached geological 

 observations ? 



I he glacial phenomena of the central ranges are 

 described in connection with the successive areas 

 studied, and the gravel terraces, which are well illus- 

 trated by views and sections, are correlated with 

 climatic changes. The authors hope that subsequent 



