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CHAPTER VIII. 



CASPIAN SEA. 



The Caspian and Aral are wholly inland seas, 

 receiving the inflow of great rivers, but having no 

 ultimate communication with any larger ocean : 

 in this respect they resemble the Dead Sea, with this 

 difference — that the waters of the latter show an 

 excess of salt, whilst those of the Caspian are only 

 brackish ; the meaning of this difference will be 

 explained presently. 



The Caspian is European from the point where 

 the great range of the Caucasus comes down to its 

 coast, in lat. 40°, to the mouth of the Oural River, 

 in lat. 47°. The area of this sea has been estimated 

 at 140,000 square miles; but the region which 

 bounds its northern half on either side still presents 

 unmistakable evidences that its waters have at 

 some time extended west as far as the mouths of 

 the Danube, and eastwards to the Sea of Aral. 

 This was not a continuous expanse of water, but 

 rather a chain of lakes, of which the boundary 

 lines and connecting links may still be traced in 

 lines of cliff. Elevations near the mouth of the 

 Volga, of rather more than eighty feet above the 

 present mean level of the Caspian, are capped with 



p 



