56 
EXPLORATIONS IN TURKESTAN. 
the appearance of much greater age, being more completely decayed. The largest 
of these, Gliainr Kala (fig. 32), a group of huge mounds within a degraded wall, 
must have had a beginning very long ago. The relation of its earliest, deepest-lying 
artifacts to the strata of the plain deserves the closest scrutiny. 
As no sections could be found, it is impossible to say whether any subdivisions 
can be established in the fluviatile deposits of the plains. The best means of deter- 
mining this point would be by the aid of a soil auger, the use of which is to be 
recommended. As an encouragement to study of this kind, it should be remem- 
bered that graded rivers, like those of these desert plains, are in a ver^' delicate 
Fig. 32. — The Central Mound o( Ghaiur Kala. from 60 to 80 feel high, in Old Merv, looking north. 
adjustment, and that a change of climate or a change in the altitude of their head- 
waters should e.xpectably produce a change in their regime. During a moister or 
cooler climatic period these withering ri\'ers must have been longer than they now 
are ; indeed, they would probably be longer than they are to-day if their waters were 
not distributed over the fields of the oases. There is good reason for believing, as 
various observers have suggested, that the Zerafshan would now reach the Amu 
but for its use on the fields of Samarkand and Bokhara. But whether the climate 
of the region has been moist or cool enough in Quaternary time to extend the 
Murg-ab and the Tejen so that they might join the Amu, as has been suggested, 
has not yet been proved. 
