432 



JSotes on the li/JIuence 



[No. 36, 



it. He found it was almost circular, with a diameter of about 

 400 yards. The water was about 120 feet below the level of its 

 abrupt margin. 



It happened that I, too, found myself in the neighbourhood of 

 this same lake in the month of November, 1831. It cannot be com- 

 pared to any thing so accurately as to a crater, the bottom of which 

 is filled with water. I found that it was elevated 11,800 feet above 

 the level of the sea, and hence was in the cold region. It is sur- 

 rounded with immense pasture grounds, and, 1,500 feet below it, 

 there are the sheep-folds of Piliputzin. To the east the Cordillera 

 which descends towards the coast is covered with forests which are 

 almost unknown. The information which the shepherds who live in 

 its vicinity gave us had little in it of the marvellous so often asso- 

 ciated with it. They had never witnessed any flames issue from 

 its waters ; nor had they ever heard any detonations. The result 

 of my excursion to this lake was the observation, that all things, so 

 far as level was concerned, were in the state they had been at the 

 epoch of M. de la Condamine's visit. 



The study of the lakes which are so numerous in Asia will proba- 

 bly lead to a result, in every respect conformable to that which has 

 been deduced from the observation made in South America, viz., that 

 the streams which water a country diminish in proportion as the 

 clearing of it advances and its cultivation extends. The recent la- 

 bours of M. de Humboldt who has supplied so niuch valuable infor- 

 mation on this portion of the globe, seem to leave little doubt on this 

 point. After having shown that the system of the Altai range ex- 

 tends b}^ a succession of hills into the steppe of Kirghiz, and that, con- 

 sequently, the Oural chain is not connected with that of the Altai, as 

 has been generally supposed, this celebrated geographer demon- 

 strates, that precisely at the place where we have been in the habit of 

 placing the Alghinic mountains, a remarkable region of lakes com- 

 mences which are continued into the plains which are traversed by 

 the rivers Ichin, Omsk, and Ob. (See his Fragmens Asiatiques, t. i.) 

 It might not be too much to say that these numerous lakes are the 

 residue of the evaporation of a vast mass of water, which, in ancient 

 times covered the whole country and which has been broken up into 

 so many separate lakes by the configuration of the surface. In cross- 

 ing the steppe of Baraba, that he might reach Barnaoul from Tobolsk 



