236 
THE BASIN OF EASTERN PERSIA AND SISTAN. 
both traverse the open plain at first, Inil later enter gorges, one of which, along the 
Atrek, is said to be so deep and narrow as to afford magnificent scener)- and to be 
impassable fi^r caravans. 
THE KUCHAN KARTHQOAKE. 
In connection with the earth-movements by which the Meshed basin has been 
differentiated from Kopet Dagh and Binalud Knh it is interesting to note that earth- 
quakes are still common in this region, and are most violent at Kuchan, where the 
Meshed fault ends in a flexure. In November, 1893, an unusually severe shock 
destroyed Kuchan, and is said to have killed from 5,000 to 7,000 people. So com- 
plete was the destruction that in 1904 the place had almost lost the semblance of a 
town and was fast becoming a mere shapeless mass of ruins. The surviving inhab- 
Fig. 153. — The ruins of Old Kuchan. 
itants moved to a location about 10 miles farther east and have there built a new 
town, modeled after the Russian pattern, with broad streets shaded with numerous 
trees. Earthquakes still occur very frequently, but are reported to be much less violent 
at New Kuchan than at the old city. A few of the people of Old Kuchan refused 
to leave the ruins after the great earthquake of 1893. Digging among the shat- 
tered houses, they piilled out old timbers and set them up to form houses which 
should be both rain-proof and earthquake-proof. At first the timbers were merely 
set up A-shape against a ridge-pole, like roofs without walls, and the interstices' 
were filled with bushes and the whole plastered with mud. When a more pre- 
tentious house was desired, a second structure of the same sort was erected parallel 
to the first, and the intervening space was walled in and bridged with a flat roof. 
Old Kuchan consists to-day of a heap of niins on which are irregularly scattered 
earthquake-proof houses containing from one to three rooms (fig. 153). 
