before the Geographical Society, May 27,1867. 29 
chain of Central Asia. Whilst h — like myself, the hy- 
pothesis of the een Aral depredsiots bu been emptied and 
refilled in the historical period, he refers the desiccation of the 
Asiatic rivers and the diminution of lakes to the decrease of 
> pete in the high mountains, as well as to great evaporation. 
y these causes he thinks that at one Re the Aral Sea may 
bet oS Abe rg Av. osha of 9 Parr ad of Chagatai. y thus travelled pet 
e Aral. We are Pee ta deed, that if they 
etiay 00 a 
y 
metrical and literal directness, it will rote: d _ through the irk eg north of 
tury 
same rou mmends—viz., that from Sarai to Saraichik, 
and thence to Urghanj and Almalik—was followed by Friar Pascal, of Vittoria, 
in 1337," (an Sea ee a few years earlier, in travelling 
m to B 
“Tt was seabably oh also the route followed by John arene: on his iB aa 
king, in 1339-42; but unfortunately, he sa: ryt nothing w: 
th i and 
_ We have named all the travellers, as far ne am aware, that have left any 
record of their journeys in those regions during the period to which Sir H Henry 
referred. None of them, we must Sakcinitrisdiow, say anything of the Aral Sea; 
: , “2 : > 
. © gre p of fra 
Mauro, ‘Sehek it contains no Aral, represents the river Amu (or Oxus) ee flowing 
i ion 0 
2 
thing like its proper conditions. Many years after the date of the Russian geog- 
raphy 15 which we have alluded as so clearly indicating the Aral under the name 
e Blue in his i 
ting th 
aocnrtits as flo into the Caspian, and a same river, under 
the name of Sur, flowing by Tashkend into the ‘ Lake of er with a differ- 
ence of 30 mete of he ate aba g the two! Even — de la Croiz, in 
ur, has no erent Aho of th 
“There oe akeok one medizval map wine at first sight seems to bear strong 
testimony to the existence of the Aral Sea in the beginning of the 14th century. 
ra th it ; f : 2, 
ed by ‘4 
Satiy id Hore Teeamoes Capa ot de Bees iat rer position of tho Caaplan 
arly a e Yrcanum Caspis or snl in proper iota of Sr Cc 
rey 
t by a river with another ium, 
and full of Islands, which is in a i oe 
to the east, toward Sera, ap a third and smaller 
into which the Gyon flows (i. e. Jihun or Oxus). I dare not, however, lay much 
stre ch contains st nothing else a 
exacter information. The multiplied seas may have only out of some 
classical “fe 
: 5 satay, ay 232.” 
s engraved in ‘Bongarsius, Gesta Dei per r Francos,’ vol. ii. There 
isa sacat i facsimile of it in the second vile of Vincent; but in this inte. the oe 
sea is scarcely to be reco 
