28 EXPLORATIONS IN TURKESTAN. 
these sloping uplands with the more nearly horizontal uplands of the Bosporus, 
and to regard them both as parts of a peneplain, with many unconsumed residuals 
or monadnocks, in a late Tertiary cycle of erosion. A ver^- moderate warping 
would suffice to have depressed part of the peneplain in what is now the basin of 
the Black Sea, and to have raised an adjoining part in what is now the sloping 
northern border of Asia Minor. The sloping uplands woxdd then be dissected by 
valleys, whose depth would rapidl}' increase inland, and whose sides would have 
a younger expression than that of the uplands in which they eroded, as was so dis- 
tinctly the case along those western, middle, and eastern parts of the coast that 
we saw. 
A daj- ashore at Trebizonde was gi\en chiefly to the gravels that lie on the 
uplands back of the cit}'. Level beds of ashy gray sands and gravels, covered with 
angular waste which has crept down from the next higher ledges, were found in 
two localities on the steep hillside about 300 feet above the sea level (A, fig. 14); 
Fig. 14. — Diagram to illustrate the occurrence of gravels near Trebizonde. 
more extensive beds of yellowish gravel (B) occurred at a height of 500 or 550 feet 
on the shoulders of the sloping upland where it was cut by the narrow valleys. 
Scattered pebbles (C) occurred at still higher levels, up to about 800 feet. These 
gravels have been described by Wright, who regards them as later than "the entire 
rock erosion of the region " (p. 249). 
It was not possible, in the short time at our disposal, to reach an independent 
conclusion as to whether the gravels were older or younger than the vallejs of the 
district No fossils were found in them, and hence it can not be said whether they 
are of marine or fluviatile origin. It should be stated that the uplifted shorelines, 
next east of Trebizonde, seemed to turn somewhat inland along a \-alley side; 
hence the relation of higher sea level and valley erosion is not a simple problem. 
THE QUATERNARY CASPIAN SHORELINES NE.\R BAKU. 
It has already been pointed out that the present shoreline, as well as the ele- 
vated shorelines, of the Caspian skirt an eroded surface of late Tertiar}- Aralo- 
Caspian strata in the Baku district. Hence the waters of the sea must ha^•e been, 
for a considerable part of early Quatemar}- time, lower than they are now. This 
lower water stand, inferred from ph)-siographic evidence, should not be confused 
with the lower water stand during the historical ]\Iiddle Ages, about the tenth cen- 
tury, as demonstrated by the occurrence of the walls of several buildings (H, fig. 15), 
nearly submerged a few hundred feet offshore in Baku Harbor. Nor should the 
