84 STEPPES AND DESERTS. 



any coast, and in those easterly meridians where the cold of 

 winter is known to exceed that of corresponding latitudes 

 nearer our own part of the world, a plateau which should be 

 as high as Madrid or Munich might indeed have very hot 

 summers, but would hardly have, in 4 '3 and 44 latitude, 

 extremely mild winters with scarcely any snow. Near the 

 Caspian, 83 English feet below the level of the Black Sea, 

 at Astrachan in 46 21' lat., I saw the cultivation of the 

 vine greatly favoured by a high degree of summer heat ; but 

 the winter cold is there from 20 to 25 Cent. (4 to 

 13 Eahr.) It is therefore necessary to protect the vines 

 after November, by sinking them deep in the earth. Plants 

 which live, as we may say, only in the summer, as the vine, 

 the cotton bush, rice, and melons, may indeed be cultivated 

 with success between the latitudes of 40 and 44 on plains 

 of more than 500 toises (3197 English feet) elevation, being 

 favoured by the powerful radiant heat ; but how could the 

 pomegranate trees of Aksu, and the orange trees of Kami, 

 whose fruit Pere Grosier extolled as distinguished for its good- 

 ness, bear the cold of the long and severe winter which would 

 be the necessary consequence of a considerable elevation of the 

 land ? (Asie Centrale, T. ii. p. 48-52, and 429.) Carl Zim- 

 merman (in the learned Analysis of his " Karte von Inner 

 Asien," ] 841, S. 99) has made it appear extremely probable 

 that the Tarim depression, i. e. the desert between the moun- 

 tain chains of the Thian-schan and the Kuen-liin, where the 

 Steppe river Tarim-gol empties itself into the Lake of Lop, 

 which used to be described as an alpine lake, is hardly 1200 

 (1279 English) feet above the level of the sea, or only twice 



