— 6 — 



argument applies to the name "Turan" which covers Mush- 

 KETOw's "Turkestan". The "Aral-Basin" would better de- 

 signate our territory, but this name also includes the 

 Kirghiz Steppe. The designation Transcaspian Plain or Low- 

 lands or briefly Transcaspia has finally been selected as 

 most appropriate. The same name has been used to indicate 

 an administrative unit of the Russian empire, the government 

 Transcaspia, which extended almost to the Amu Darya, to 

 the borders of the vassal state of Buchara. 



In thus designating my territory Transcaspia it should 

 be emphasised that though to the east it stretches to Kara 

 Tau, I do not use this name as defining a geographical area, 

 but only as a name for a territory the borders of which I 

 have determined myself, and which lies beyond the Caspian Sea. 



CHAPTER 2 



Features of the Geology of Transcaspia. 



Turkestan and Central Asia are supposed to have been 

 covered by the sea during the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods, 

 and even on the mountains at a height of 11,000 feet. Ter- 

 tiary deposits have been found (Mushketow). 



This sea receded from Hanhai earlier than from the 

 plain of Turkestan, and of this country the eastern part was 

 the first part to become dry. During the Miocene period the 

 brackish Sarmatian inland sea connected the Aral, the Cas- 

 pian and the Black Sea (Karpinski). At a later period, pro- 

 bably contemporaneous with the great Scandinavian glacial 

 period and when there was much water from the melting ice, 

 there existed a sea (the Aralo-Caspian Basin) which filled the 

 depressions now occupied by the Caspian Sea and the Aral 

 Sea, connecting them by a narrow straight (Karpinski, Sjo- 

 gren). 



Almost all the lowlands of Turkestan (95 per ct. accor- 

 ding to Mushketow) are thus covered with deposits from 

 the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods. Through these, islands of 



