260 Dr George Buist on the 



named, when a fresh upheaval brought the whole up to its present posi- 

 tion. The Runn of Cutch now vastly circumscribed in its area from the 

 time of the holy man's malediction, was to a considerable extent submerged 

 by the earthquake of the 16th of June 1819, of which sufficient mention 

 has already been made, and now forms in part a lake, in part a salt water 

 marsh. Considerably to the north of this in the Collectorate of Ahmeda- 

 bad are two remarkable hollows some way from each other, called the Null 

 and the B^ke. They both appear the results of volcanic agency, the water 

 they contain is salt, they receive supplies from rivulets but give oifnone. 

 The only other hollow in India of any note is the basin of Lake 

 Loonar, a depression situated among the Shiel Hills in the centre of the 

 Deccan. It is about 500 feet below the level of the surrounding country, 

 and seems to be the crater of an extinct volcano, lava being in abundance 

 at no great distance. The water it contains is nearly saturated with 

 subcarbonate of soda, the Natron of the lakes of Egypt. 



We now come to the consideration of the largest and most wonderful 

 depression in the world, — that of the north-east of Asia, — not including 

 that of the Dead Sea, an account of which will be given last. From the 

 borders of the Gulf of Finland and the Black Sea to those of the Yellow 

 Sea, extending all across Central Asia, there is a space nearly 4000 miles 

 from east to west, and at its western extremity nearly half as much from 

 north to south, comprising in all an area of above three millions of square 

 miles> containing lakes and rivers numberless, but which send not one 

 drop of water to the ocean, evaporation subliming into the air all the 

 moisture that appears on the ground. In the western portion of this the 

 ground sinks in some places above 80 feet beneath the level of the ocean, 

 affording a vast space of from 760,000 to 800,000 square miles in area, 

 or larger than the Mediterranean, to all appearance the basin of an old 

 inland sea, at no time more than slightly connected with the Northern 

 Ocean. This depression comprehends the whole of Trans Ox~onia, includ- 

 ing the basins near its lowest part, of the Aral and Caspian, the surface 

 of the latter being 83 feet beneath the Mediterranean. From his obser- 

 vations on these points Humboldt arrives at the following wonderful but 

 far from improbable conclusions : — 



"1. That before the times which we call historic, at epochs very near 

 in point of time to the latest revolutions on the surface of the globe, the 

 lake Aral may have been entirely comprehended in the basin of the Cas- 

 pian Sea, and that then the great depression of Asia (the concavity of 

 Tauran), may have formed a vast interior sea, which may have commu- 

 nicated on one side with the Euxine, and on the other side, by means of 

 cracks more or less wide, with the Icy Sea, and the lakes Telegoul, Talas, 

 and Balkhache. 



" 2. That even in the historic times, we must not admit too generally 

 that the soil has followed the successive changes which seem to be indi- 

 cated by the chronological series of opinions emitted by ancient historians 

 and geographers. These authors seldom represent the geography of their 

 epoch : — they choose between preceding opinions, and their absolute silence 

 respecting certain facts or natural phenomena is no argument against the 

 xistence of these phenomena. 



" 3. That very probably from the time of Herodotus, as at the epoch 

 of the Macedonian expedition, the Aral formed but a lateral appendage 

 of the Oxus, and that it communicated with the Caspian only by the arm 

 which the Scythian Gulf of that sea extends so far to the coast, and re- 

 ceives the river Oxus. 



" 4. That either by the simple phenomenon of the increase of growth 

 (the preponderance of evaporation over aqueous supply,) or by plutonic 

 crevices or elevations, the Scythian Gulf (the Karabogas) has been pro- 



