227 
1879.] Information regarding the Kirghiz Steppes and Turk is tan. 
Sir (Darya) and about the mouths of the Chu and Sari-su.”* Now from 
the newest maps these ancient names have disappeared, either at the 
will of the topographers who have surveyed the localities in question, or 
by the order of the leaders of successive expeditions or, finally, from some 
mere chance or other. Without attaching, therefore, any great importance 
to the absence from modern maps of the names noted in the “ Book of the 
Great Survey,” it now remains to take stock of the indications of the book 
itself. We are told then that into'the lake Ak-Sakal-Barbi, on the side 
opposite the mouth of the Irgiz, several streams fall. Now if these streams 
and their tributaries exist at all, they are too insignificant to be taken into 
account. Evidently, therefore, the remark does not refer to them. But, 
besides these rivers and the river Irgiz, in the basin of the Ak-Sakal-Barbi 
there remains but one river. This is the Turgai, and the one in all proba¬ 
bility represented by the name Sauk. This assumption is supported by the 
following facts. The rivers Turgai and Irgiz merge at a point not far 
from their entrance into lake Ak-Sakal-Barbi, but which of them has the 
pre-eminence is the question. Tevshin gives the priority to the Turgai. 
He says, “ The lake of Ak-Sakal-Barbi is well known because into it falls 
one of the most considerable of the Kirghiz rivers, viz., the Turgai, which 
receives the waters of many other rivers and streams and amongst others those 
of the Irgiz.” In the face of such importance attached to the river Tur¬ 
gai, it would not have been omitted from the “ Book of the Great Survey,” 
a work in which details are given of many rivers much less important and 
far more distant, as, for example, the Jilanchik (p. 208), and consequent¬ 
ly the Turgai must have been known under another name. Besides which, 
according to the testimony of Tevshin, the lake Ak-Sakal-Barbi, as com¬ 
pared with its size during the latter half of the last century, has consider¬ 
ably diminished, and therefore in former times one can imagine that the 
rivers were independent of each other, that the course of the Irgiz was 
more to the east and that of the Turgai to the west. These arguments, 
therefore, seem sufficient for us to recognize in the Turgai the ancient river 
Saule. If such is the case, the river Bozin-Hinchal-Ilgen resolves itself into 
the Ulikoyak, a considerable tributary on the right bank of the Turgai. 
At the end of the passage in the “ Book of the Great Survey” which 
we are now examining, a repetition of the name Irgiz is observed, with the 
addition to it of the word Uruk. Now it has already been said that the 
river Irgiz falls into the lake (Ak-Sakal-Barbi). Hence when it is observ¬ 
ed for the second time that the Uruk Irgiz falls into the same lake, refer¬ 
ence must be made to that Irgiz which flows from Mount Airuk ; in other 
words to the modern Chit-Irgiz which is the same for the lower portion of 
* Histoire des Mongols et des Tatars, par Abul Ghazi Bahadur Khan, par le Baron 
Desmaisons. St. Petersburg!!, (page 191). 
