92 
THROUGH ASIA 
conclusions. On the right bank of the Syr-daria the ther- 
mometer showed 34°Fahr. (i°i C.); sixty-five yards out 34 7 
Fahr. (i°5 C.) ; sixty-five yards from the left bank 35°8 
Fahr. (2°i C.) ; whilst close under the same bank it was 
36°! Fahr. (2^3 C.). Here the river was steaming at ii 
a.m., the temperature of the air being I4°5 Fahr. C.). 
That is to say, thick columns of vapour rose into the air ; 
and the ferryman told me, that early in the morning the 
mist is so dense that the ferry-boat vanishes from sight a 
few yards from the shore. The phenomenon appeared to 
be very common at this time of the year. On the right 
bank, where the cold water flowed, the river did not steam 
at ali. There, on the contrary, a strip of water, sixteen 
yards in breadth, was of the same clear, light-green colour 
as the water of the Narynj but outside this belt, the water 
suddenly became muddy, and continued so right across to 
the left bank, exactly as in the Kara-daria. This proves 
that at the distance of miles below their confluence 
the two currents have not commingled, or rather that the 
warm muddy water of the Rara-daria spreads over the cold 
clear water of the Naryn, except for a narrow belt near the 
rio-ht bank. The fact that lower down the latter increases 
a whole degree in warmth in such a short distance is natur- 
ally due to its close contact with the warmer water of the 
Kara-daria. 
At Gurum-serai the temperature of the water, as I men- 
tioned before, was everywhere 35°4 Fahr. {i°9 C.), and the 
same muddy colour prevailed across its entire breadth , 
moreover the river was quite free from ice. Even without 
the aid of calorimetry these phenomena prove that the 
current of the Kara-daria is more powerful than the current 
of the Naryn, and that in the intervening 55 miles all the 
drift-ice has time to melt. That the conditions were the 
same on January 30th and February 2nd is proved by the 
volume of water being the same in both cases. At 
Khojent, on the contrary, the conditions were very differ- 
ent. In the first place, the volume of the water was 
cubic feet greater than at Gurum-serai. The temperature 
of the water was only 32°9 Fahr. (o°5 C.), that is to say. 
