CASPIAN SHORELINES NEAR KRASNOVODSK. 
35 
the processes of erosion had had a lower baselevel before the beaches were built ; 
that is, the Caspian here as elsewhere rose upon the mountain flanks from a 
fonnerly lower level. 
The more problematic cobble deposits near Krasnovodsk lie at altitudes of 
from 400 to 470 feet over the Caspian, in notches (NN, fig. 20) on the steep southern 
face of the high escarpment, the Kuba Dagh, fonned of vertical Jurassic limestones, 
whose sharp points rise 600 or 1,000 feet abo\'e the sea. There can be little doubt 
that the well-rounded cobbles and bowlders, from 2 to 5 feet in diameter, indicate 
wave action, but it is not clear when the wave action took place. A curious feature 
is the occurrence with the cobbles of subangular scraps of dark crystalline rock, up 
to 5 or 6 inches in diameter, apparenth- derived from the cnstalline ridge at the 
Fig. 2 1 . — An Elevated Caspian Shoreline in the Balkhan Mountains, near Jebel Station, 
Central Asiatic Railway. 
end of the tombolos, although a mile of low land now separates the ridge from tlie 
Kuba Dagh. It is eminenth' possible that the cobbles should be associated with 
the horizontal marls and limestones, Andrussow's " Aktschlag\lscliichten," a section 
of which we saw on the caravan route to Klii\a on the north side of the Kuba Dagh, 
micoinformably overlying its vertical layers, as in fig. 20; and if so, they would be 
iiuich older than the modern Caspian shorelines that we were looking for. 
The only safe test to apply to these cobble beds, as well as to those in the 600- 
foot spits near Baku, will be to search for them at other points where the coast is 
high enough to have received similar marks. If we provisionally accept the Baku 
spits as marking a temporaiy shoreline, it is possible that much of their exceptional 
height may be due to relativeh^ local warping. Such a supposition is not inherently 
