RELATIONS OF THE RIVER CIIU TO ISSIK KUL. Ill 
histon-. Its abandoned shorelines seemed to be more recent than the glacial epoch, 
and the variations that t!ie\- represent are perhaps as well explained by the varying 
relations between the river and the lake as by climatic changes ; but it is evident 
that the two processes may ha\-e worked together. 
RELATIONS OF THE RIVER CHU TO ISSIK KUL. 
Issik Kill at present has no outlet, and the lake water is very slightly brackish. 
The Kute-maldy, a short outgoing branch at the elbow of the Chu (K, fig. 43), flows 
into the lake at its western end. When seen on the map, this stream would naturally 
be taken for the lake outlet ; so indeed Humboldt and Ritter are said to have thought. 
Various legends are current around the lake as to the origin of the Kute-maldy. A 
postmaster gave us a ver\- circumstantial stor\' of how a Kirghiz khan, some fifty 
years ago, tried to drown out his enemies down the valley of the Chu by cutting a 
canal from the lake to the river, hoping in this way to create a devastating flood ; but 
the lake proved to be lower than the river, instead of higher, as had been expected, 
and so the water ran the wrong way. Another postmaster told us most explicitly 
that a canal was cut by the Kirghiz, about thirty 
years ago, so as to drown out Tokmak and other 
Russian towns in the lower Chu Valley by a flood 
from the lake. When the ends of the canal were 
opened, the water ran in both from the lake and 
from the river, but the current from the ri\'er 
overcame that from the lake, and since then the 
flow has been into the lake. He added that the 
originally straight canal has become winding by ^'^- ''-'!^^^:J^^S;^t^'- 
the action of the stream. Still a third account is 
that the Kirghiz found the lake was slowly rising on their fields, and that they cut a 
canal to the river, hoping thereby to lower the water. It is \erA- doubtful whether 
there is any truth in these stories. In 1856 Semenof saw a small marsh at the elbow 
of the Chu, from which a tiny rivulet flowed to the lake (1869, 322). A little later, 
Venyukof noted the winding course of the Kute-maldy and considered it a natural 
bifurcation of the Chu (i860, 395). In 1859 Golubef described the Kute-maldv as 
an artificial canal. " The water in it is nearly stagnant, and barometrical leveling 
did not show any perceptible difference between the levels of the lake and the Chu " 
(1861, 369). Osten-Sacken saw the Kute-maldy in 1867 as a shallow, sluggish, 
winding, muddy stream, with a delta at its mouth (1869, 28). The last description 
applies to the stream as we found it in 1903. Its channel is said to be left nearl)- 
dry wheu the water in the Chu is low. 
In view of the delta-like form of the gravel plains between the present course 
of the Chu and the lake, there is no sufficient reason for susjiccting that the Kute- 
maldy is anything but a natural distributary- of the main river, from which it can 
hardly divert more than a twentieth part of its volume. 
It is interesting to inquire what effect would be produced on the lake if the 
whole current of the Chu were turned into it, and for this purpose the following 
numerical data are] pertinent. According to the 40-verst Russian map, Issik Kul 
