THE TERRACES OF SISTAN. 295 
SODTHBAST SIDE OF XHB I,AKB. 
On the diametrically opposite side of the lake, along the southeni border of the 
Helmund delta, a number of beaches and bluffs confinn these conclusions. Certain 
features stand out clearly, and may be classified according to age : (a) Modem shore- 
lines ; (^) younger abandoned shorelines closely connected with fresh bluffs; (c) 
older abandoned shorelines with weathered bluffs. 
Modem shorelines. — The modern shorelines are e\'erywhere weak, and in 
many places where the shore is flat and marsh)- they are quite indistinguishable. 
The lake can not have stood long at the present level, for if it had the present 
shorelines would be more pronounced. The water appears to ha\e fallen gradually 
to its present position, as is shown by the character of the beaches which inter\-ene 
between the present water-level and the 15-foot level. Where the shores are some- 
what steep the weak modern beach appears as the lower member of a series of small 
beach ridges which culminate in the well-developed 15-foot beach. Where the 
shores are flat and are not closely bordered by blufis the older beaches diverge from 
the present lake shore, and are more clearly differentiated. 
YoiDiger abandoned shorelines. — (/) Lidtick. — Three older beaches were seen 
which clearly belong to a time when the lake stood higher than now. Their e.xact 
level in reference to the water could not be ascertained, but it is certain that they lie 
beyond the reach of the lake to-day. In the first place, many culti\-ated fields, and 
even villages, lie between the beaches and the lake ; and, in the second place, the 
beaches are covered in part with large sand-dunes which could only accumulate after 
the water had retired. The beach which lies nearest the lake was seen at Lutuck, 
half-way from Devletabad to Vennal. Here the delta plain ends in low east-and-west 
bluffs of the the usual banded clays capped with gravel. From the foot of the bluffs 
what appears to be an old beach diverges northward. It has now been transfonned 
into a strip of low sand-dunes which cover a breadth of from 25 to 50 feet, and rise 
to a height of 5 feet. No pebbles or fossils were found. Farther south along the base 
of the cliffs this beach could not be distinguished. Beyond Vermal, however, there 
is a strip of sand which has the character of a beach without the relief. Where an 
irrigation canal has been dug through this the sand was found to be full of small 
bi\'alve shells like those found in the beaches next to be described. 
{2) The Seh-Kuheh beach and bluffs. — Two or three miles southeast of Seh-Kuheh 
and from 5 to 7 miles from the lake, there is a much better example of a shore- 
line of the same kind as that at Lutuck. It consists of the line of fresh bluffs from 
which sections M, N, and O, plate 5, were taken. At their foot lies a ridge of huge 
sand-dunes (fig. 170), half concealing a beach composed of sand, fine gravel, and 
bivalve shells like those of \'ermal. About 2 miles from Seh-Kuheh the beach leaves 
the foot of the bluffs and runs northwestward between Seh-Kuheh and the lake. It 
takes the same fonn as the beach at Lutuck — a long line of sand blown into dunes 
by the wind. It is not impossible that the two beaches are of the same age, 
although I am inclined to believe that the Lutuck beach belongs to a slightly later 
stage of the lake's history-. 
The exact age of the Seh-K\iheh beach can not be detennined by phj'siographic 
evidence, but it is at least evident that the water stood upon it ver>' recently. This 
