28 Address of Sir R. I. Murchison 
In considering what changes have or may have occurred 
within the historic period, and quite independent of all former 
or geological changes, I necessarily attach great weight to the 
opinion I have recently obtained through my friend General 
Helmersen from M. P. Semenof, the President of the Physico- 
Geographical section of the Russian Geo eographical Society, who 
has distinguished himself by his researches in the Thian Shan 
the Great Sea, the ‘ Mare Magnum, which has its issue hy St. Georg’s pbannel ss at 
Constantinople ;’ and rides for many days along the shores of the C: 
ently under the impression that it is but a part o: th ~ ee We picks ae 
in passing, if there were no Friar J es among the ancients —— of the more 
venial error of confounding the Sea of Aral with the ‘Caspian Be this as it may, 
there is no reason for carrying route of Carpini’s a ver the bed of the 
Aral. After cro ossing the Jaic, itlay for many pice through the land “y the Can- 
gite, or Kankhlis, in which they found few people, but very many an salt- 
marshes and lagoons, which they took to be the Paludes Meotides of Gane 
and which probably were those which still exist to the north and _— Se 
e Aral.? } j 
upon the cities and eg ave ted lands of northern Turkestan. 
- ubruquis, eight years later, is more correct in his notions 
of geography, He ‘dearly discriminates the Caspian from the Euxine, and gives 
a fair ace of 
it. 6 give the general orientation of his ro g 
om Wolga for 45 days and th sou and so continuing 
for eight days Ki , acity known to have been in the valley 
of the river Talas. i Tae peat: See Furteam wel) be the dake: wil Ae re ou 
“ Another traveller, who visited ¢ he court of Mongolia in the —_ year with 
Rubruquis, was King Hethum or Hayton, of little Armenia. He, too, after visit- 
ing Batu Khan upon the Wolga, rides eastward across the Jaic; i as he passes 
the Irtish also, his route must have lain far to the north of the Aral. his re- 
turn he passed by Samarkand and Bokhara into Persia. 
** Marco Polo eenisge never mentions the , indeed; but neither does he 
mention the Jaxartes, and seems never to have been nearer either Kash- 
gar. In the oeshiwioaey chapters of his book, in which he speaks of the journey 
made by his ae me uncle from the Wolga to Bokhara, he unfortunately 8 
no particulars of vd tees? excepting that they went south from Bolghar to 
Ukak (near Susator) before striking east.* 
“ Probably, however, it w — same as that laid down in the = ext century 
from ‘ormation of the merchants who had travelled it, by the Florentine 
factor Balducei Pegolotti, elect 1330-1340. This route, ap by mercantile 
travellers bound for China, ran from Sarai, on the Wo 
neo, or 
the Jaic, and thence in negra oan , the capital of 
dona to) Oxus, saa 60 miles south 
present embouchure of that river in the A he travellers 
were in the habit of proceeding to Otrar, a few miles eat of the Jaxartes, and 
not far from the modern town of Turkestan, and so forward to the Almalik, near 
> See in D'Avezae's edition, p. 743.” 
“See the narrative of Carpini's companion, Benedict the Pole, in Ava 
p- ore 
3 «Ror a detailed examination of Friar William’s route see ‘Cathy and the 
ee p- 5699.” 
The Tigeri, or River which Polo mentions as crossed the party, 
was supposed by Marsdi ten and his suecessors to be the Jaxartes; an Pauthier 
has clearly shown it to be the Wolga. (See his ‘Polo’ p. 8; also Cathay,’ p- 
a a ee = Pde 
before crossing the Jaic. feo ear stone aerate 
