8o6 The American Naturalist. [September, 
Another sheet of the map shows the region on the right bank of the 
lower Volga. Here upper Carboniferous strata occur only in the deeper 
ravines ; the Cretaceous is represented by the Aptian and Neocomian 
of the lower Cretaceous, and by the Senomanian, Turonian and Seno- 
nian of the upper ; but nearly the whole of the region is covered by 
Eocene clay and sands. Boulders are strewn over the surface in such 
a way as to cause Professor Sintsoff to conclude that the ice-sheet of 
Russia came down to the Volga under the fiftieth parallel. 
Asia and Oceanica.— The Transcaspian Railway.— The 
Hon. G. Curzon, M. P., (Proc. Roy. Geog. Soc, May, 1889,) gives 
particulars of the history and construction of the great Transcaspian 
Railway, a train of which steamed, amid the roar of cannon and the 
playing of bands, into Samarkand on May 27, 1888. The road from 
Merv to the Oxus was made at the rate of from a mile to a mile and a- 
half a day. The average cost of construction, rolling stock and rails 
included, was ;^45oo per mile, but the cost on the spot did not exceed 
£2100. Most of the region traversed is flat as a billiard -table, and 
only three bridges : across the Tejmd, across the Murghab at Merv, 
and over the Amu Daria, were required in 900 miles. The chief dif- 
ficulties arose from scarcity of water and superabundance of sand, and 
though the railway was built in spite of both, both will still be potent 
factors of expense and hindrance. Artesian wells were sunk, and 
failed ; sea-water was distilled, but now water is taken to and fro in 
huge wooden vats attached to the trains, cisterns having been built 
wherever there is a natural supply. Most of the line is laid either on a 
solid argillaceous surface, with saline efflorescence on the top ; or on a 
loose soil which nourishes camelthorn and other desert shrubs, and 
with irrigation would yield abundant crops. The shifting sands are 
limited to : (i) the first 30 miles from the Caspian ; (2) the stretch 
between the Merv oasis and the Oxus, and (3) a narrow belt between 
the Oxus and Bokhara. Soaking the permanent way with sea-water, 
covering it with clay, driving light palisades into the tops of the 
dunes, and the planting of tamarisk, Haloxylon ammodendron, or sak- 
sau, etc., are among the means adopted to check the advance of this 
shifting sand over the line. All lighting is done with distilled petro- 
leum. Daily trains run from the Caspian to the Oxus, twice a week 
beyond. Mr. Curzon then describes the principal points upon the 
railway, the course of which is, however, sufficiently familiar to the 
readers of the Naturalist. He states that the crests, and even the 
valleys on the southern side of the crests, of the Persian border moun- 
