Caspian Sentence Examples

The most famous Arsaces was the chief of the Parni, one of the nomadic Scythian or Dahan tribes in the desert east of the Caspian Sea.

Its geographical range was formerly very extensive, and included Great Britain, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany, Bohemia, Hungary, Poland, Transylvania, Galicia, the Caucasus as far as the Caspian, southern Russia, Italy, Spain, Greece, Rumania, Bulgaria, Servia, and portions of central and northern Asia.

It was an exciting chase of king by king, in which each covered the ground by incredible exertions, shedding their slower-going followers as they went, past Rhagae (Rai) and the Caspian gates, till early one morning Alexander came in sight of the broken train which still clung to the fallen king.

The pursuit had brought Alexander into that region of mountains to the south of the Caspian which connects western Iran with the provinces to the east of the great central desert.

Finally, at Jorjan, near the Caspian, he met with a friend, who bought near his own house a dwelling in which Avicenna lectured on logic and astronomy.

It formerly joined the Kura; but in 1897 it changed its lower course, and now runs direct to the Kizil-agach Bay of the Caspian.

His armies crossed the plains beyond the Caspian, penetrated the wild mountain passes northwest of India, and did not turn back until they had entered on the Indo-Gangetic plain.

A few years afterwards, a Fleming named Rubruquis was sent on a similar mission, and had the merit of being the first traveller of this era who gave a correct account of the Caspian Sea.

In 1579 Christopher Burroughs built a ship at Nizhniy Novgorod and traded across the Caspian to Baku; and in 1598 Sir Anthony and Robert Shirley arrived in Persia, and Robert was afterwards sent by the shah to Europe as his ambassador.

From Persia much new information was supplied by Jean Chardin, Jean Tavernier, Charles Hamilton, Jean de Thevenot and Father Jude Krusinski, and by English traders on the Caspian.

In 1738 John Elton traded between Astrakhan and the Persian port of Enzeli on the Caspian, and undertook to build a fleet for Nadir Shah.

This is the case, for instance, in the Caspian sea, the Aral and Balkhash lakes, the Tarim basin, the Sahara, inner Australia, the great basin of the United States and the Titicaca basin.

With the opening of the Russian railway from the Caspian to Merv, Bokhara and Samarkand in 1886-1887, Russian manufacturers were enabled to compete in Central Asia with their western rivals, and the value of European manufactures passing Meshed in transit was much reduced.

This desert is now filled to only a small extent by the salt waters of the Caspian, Aral and Balkash inland seas; but it bears unmistakable traces of having been during Post-Pliocene times an immense inland basin.

But even this sheet of water is an inland sea, the only outlet of which, the Bosphorus, is in foreign hands, while the Caspian, an immense shallow lake, mostly bordered by deserts, possesses more importance as a link between Russia and her Asiatic settlements than as a channel for intercourse with other countries.

By their means the plains of the central plateau - the very heart of Russia, whose natural outlet was the Caspian - were brought into water-communication with the Baltic, and the Volga basin was connected with the Gulf of Finland.

Finally, in the S.E., towards the Caspian, on the slopes of the southern Urals and the plateau of Obshchiy Syrt, as also in the interior of the Crimea, and in several parts of Bessarabia, there are large tracts of real desert, buried under coarse sand and devoid of vegetation.

The rivers freeze rapidly; towards November 10th all the streams of the White Sea basin are ice-bound, and so remain for an average of 167 days; those of the Baltic, Black Sea and Caspian basins freeze later, but about December the 10th nearly all the rivers of the country are highways for sledges.

For days together the traveller sees no other vegetation; even this, however, disappears as he approaches the regions recently left dry by the Caspian, where saline clays, bearing a few Salsolaceae, or mere sand, take the place of the black earth.

Russia, however, towards the Caspian, there is a notable admixture of Asiatic species.

The Black Sea, the fauna of which appears to be very rich, belongs to the Mediterranean region, slightly modified, while the Caspian partakes of the characteristic fauna inhabiting the lakes and seas of the Aral-Caspian depression.

The mouths of the Caspian rivers are especially celebrated for their wealth of fish.2 Ethnography.

In the Volga section of the Caspian Sea fish are caught to the value of about £I,000,000 annually; in the Ural section over 40,000 tons of fish and nearly 1500 tons of caviare are obtained.

The total value of the Caspian fisheries is estimated at £3,000,000 per annum.

At Meshed i Sar, the port, or roadstead of Barfurush, the steamers of the Caucasus and Mercury Company call weekly, and a brisk shipping trade is carried on between it and other Caspian ports.

Beside the harbour are engineering works, dry docks and barracks, stores and workshops belonging to the Russian Caspian fleet.

A great circle, drawn through East Cape and the southern point of Arabia, passes nearly along the coast-line of the Arctic Ocean, over the Ural Mountains, through the western part of the Caspian, and nearly along the boundary between Persia and Asiatic Turkey.

From the Caspian to Karachi it is possible to pass without encountering any orographic obstacle greater than the divide which separates the valley of the Hari Rud from the Helmund hamun basin, which may be represented by an altitude of about 4000 ft.

The western part of the range, which received the name of Paropamisus Mons from the ancients, diminishes in height west of the 65th meridian and constitutes the northern face of the Afghan and Persian plateau, rising abruptly from the plains of the Turkoman desert, which lies between the Oxus and the Caspian.

Along the south coast of the Caspian this line of elevation is prolonged as the Elburz range(not to be confused with the Elburz of the Caucasus), and has its culminating point in Demavend, which rises to 19,400 ft.

Below the north-east declivity of this range lies Georgia, on the other side of which province rises the Caucasus, the boundary of Asia and Europe between the Caspian and Black Seas, the highest points of which reach an elevation of nearly 19,000 ft.

The area between the northern border of the Persian high lands and the Caspian and Aral Seas is a nearly desert low-lying plain, extending to the foot of the north - western extremity of the great Tibeto-Himalayan mountains, and prolonged east- Trans- ward up the valleys of the Oxus (Amu-Darya) and Caspian Jaxartes (Syr-Darya), and northward across the country re ior, and of the Kirghiz to the south-western border of Siberia.

But beyond the eastern shores of the Caspian no system of direct geodetic measurements by first-class triangulation has been possible, and the surveys of Asiatic Russia are separated from those of Europe by the width of that inland sea.

The depression westward of the Caspian and Aral basins, and the original connexion of these seas, have also come under the close investigation of Russian scientists, with the result that the theory of an ancient connexion between the Oxus and the Caspian has been displaced by the more recent hypothesis of an extension of the Caspian Sea eastwards into Trans-Caspian territory within the postPleiocene age.

The discovery of shells (now living in the Caspian) at a distance of about 100 m.

At Tiflis the yearly fall is 22 in.; on the Caspian about 7 or 8 in.; on the Sea of Aral 5 or 6 in.

The Salmonidae are entirely absent from the waters of southern Asia, though they exist in the rivers that flow into the Arctic Ocean and the neighbouring parts of the northern Pacific, extending perhaps to Formosa; and trout, though unknown in Indian rivers, are found beyond the watershed of the Indus, in the streams flowing into the Caspian.

The sturgeons, which abound in the Black Sea and Caspian, and ascend the rivers that fall into them, are also found in Asiatic Russia, and an allied form extends to southern China.

In general terms they extend, with modifications of character probably due to admixture with other types and to varying conditions of life, over the whole of northern Asia as far south as the plains bordering the Caspian Sea, including Tibet and China, and also over the IndoMalayan peninsula and Archipelago, excepting Papua and some of the more eastern islands.

The Turks are Mahommedans; their tribes extend up the Oxus to the borders of Afghanistan and Persia, and to the Caspian, and under the name of Kirghiz into Russia, and their language is spoken over a large part of western Asia.

West of the Indus the dialects approach more to Persian, which language meets Arabic and Turki west of the Tigris, and along the Turkoman desert and the Caspian.

Its northern boundary is the Kuma-Manych depression, a succession of narrow, halfdesiccated lakes and river-beds, only temporarily filled with water and connecting the Manych, a tributary of the Don, with the Kuma, which flows into the Caspian.

This depression is supposed to be a relic of the former post-Pliocene connexion between the Black Sea and the Caspian, and is accepted by most geographers as the natural frontier between Europe and Asia, while others make the dividing-line coincide with the principal water-parting of the Caucasus mountain system.

In the north and east they give place, as the Manych and the coasts of the Caspian are approached, to arid, sandy, stony steppes.

Its importance lies in the fact that it divides the streams which flow into the Black Sea and Caspian from those which make their way into the Persian Gulf.

This line of heights separates the basins of the Chorokh and the Rion (Black Sea) from those of the Aras and the Kura (Caspian Sea).

Of these, 115 species are Mediterranean, 30 are common to the Caspian Sea, and the remaining species are peculiar to the Black Sea.

In the 10th century bands of Varangians or Russified Scandinavians sailed out of the Volga and coasted along the Caspian until they had doubled the Apsheron peninsula, when they landed and captured Barda, the chief town of Caucasian Albania.

Russian aggression began somewhat early in the r8th century, when Peter the Great, establishing his base at Astrakhan on the Volga, and using the Caspian for bringing up supplies and munitions of war, captured Derbent from the Persians in 1722, and Baku in the following year.

After acquiring the northern edge of the Armenian plateau, partly from Persia in 1828 and partly from Turkey in 1829, Russia crushed a rising which had broken out in the Caspian coast districts of Daghestan on the north of the Caucasus.

In fact, nearly the whole of the region between the Caucasus and the Perso-Turkish frontier on the south, from the Caspian Sea on the one side to the Black Sea on the other, was embroiled in a civil war of the most sanguinary and ruthless character, the inveterate racial animosities of the combatants being in both cases inflamed by religious fanaticism.

When about 255 B.C. Diodotus had made himself king of Bactria and tried to expand his dominions, the chieftain of a tribe of Iranian nomads (Dahan Scyths) east of the Caspian, the Parni or Aparni, who bore the Persian name Arsaces, fled before him into Parthia.

Their route led them through Persia, along the southern and eastern shores of the Caspian (whose inland character, unconnected with the outer ocean, their journey helped to demonstrate), and probably through Talas, north-east of Tashkent.

The Boz-dagh and another ridge run between the four Koisu rivers, the head-streams of the Sulak, which flows into the Caspian.

The next most important stream, out of the great number which course down the flanks of the Caucasus and terminate in the Caspian, is the Samur.

Towards the Caspian, especially between Petrovsk and the river Sulak, the Cretaceous system is well represented, and upon its rocks rest marls, shales, and sandstones of the Eocene period.

The climate is severe on the plateaus, hot towards the Caspian, and dry everywhere.

A railway line to connect the North Caucasian line (Rostov to Petrovsk) with the Transcaucasian line (Batum to Baku) has been built along the Caspian shore from Petrovsk, through the "gate" or pass of Derbent, to Baku.

The only towns are Temir-khan-shura (pop. 9208 in 1897), the capital of the government, Derbent (14,821) and Petrovsk (9806), the last two both on the Caspian.

The primitive methods originally in use in the Russian oil-fields have already been described; but these were long ago superseded by pipe-lines, while a great deal of oil is carried by tank steamers on the Caspian to the mouth of the Volga where it is transferred to barges and thence at Tzaritzin to railway tank-cars.

Ragozin states in his work on the petroleum industry that Johann Lerche, who visited the Caspian district in 1735, found that the crude Caucasian oil required to be distilled to render it satisfactorily combustible, and that, when distilled, it yielded a bright yellow oil resembling a spirit, which readily ignited.

So too Heraclides was sent to explore the Caspian; the survey, and possible circumnavigation, of the Arabian coasts was the last enterprise which occupied Alexander.

The Balkan hill-peoples of Illyrian or Thracian stock, the hill-peoples of Asia Minor and Iran, the chivalry of Media and Bactria, the mounted bowmen of the Caspian steppes, the camel-riders of the Arabian desert, could all be turned to account.

The geographical knowledge of Anaximander was naturally more ample than that of Homer, for it extended from the Cassiterides or Tin Islands in the west to the Caspian in the east, which he conceived to open out into Oceanus.

Among the travellers of whose information he was thus able to avail himself were Pytheas of Massilia, Patroclus, who had visited the Caspian (285-282 B.C.), Megasthenes, who visited Palibothra on the Ganges, as ambassador of Seleucus Nicator (302-291 B.C.), Timosthenus of Rhodes, the commander of the fleet of Ptolemy Philadelphus (284-246 B.C.) who wrote a treatise " On harbours," and Philo, who visited Meroe on the upper Nile.

Across it were drawn seven parallels, running through Meroe, Syene, Alexandria, Rhodes, Lysimachia on the Hellespont, the mouth of the Borysthenes and Thule, and these were crossed at right angles by seven meridians, drawn at irregular intervals, and passing through the Pillars of Hercules, Carthage, Alexandria, Thapsacus on the Euphrates, the Caspian gates, the mouth of the Indus and that of the Ganges.

This map of Eratosthenes, notwithstanding its many errors, such as the assumed connexion of the Caspian with a northern ocean and the supposition that Carthage, Sicily and Rome lay on the same meridian, enjoyed a high reputation in his day.

Even Strabo (c. 30 B.C.) adopted its main features, but while he improved the European frontier, he rejected the valuable information secured by Pytheas and retained the connexion between the Caspian and the outer ocean.

Thus Pizigano's map of 1367 extends as far east as the Gulf of Persia, whilst the Medicean map of 1356 (at Florence) is remarkable on account of a fairly correct delineation of the Caspian, the Shari river in Africa, and the correct direction given to the west coast of India, which had already been pointed out in a letter of the friar Giovanni da Montecorvino of 1252.

The depths of the Black Sea are lifeless, higher organic life not being known to exist below loo fathoms. Fossiliferous remains of Dreissena, Cardium and other molluscs have, however, been dredged up, which help to show that conditions formerly existed in the Black Sea similar to those that exist at the present day in the Caspian Sea.

Again war all but broke out; but, through the intervention of France, a treaty of partition was signed at Constantinople on the 23rd of June 1724, whereby the shores of the Caspian from the junction of the Kur and the Arras (Araxes) northwards should belong to Russia, while the western provinces of Persia should fall to the share of Turkey.

The Tatars Treaty of from the frontier of Poland to the shores of the Kuchuk Caspian, including those of the Crimea and Kuban, were declared independent under their own khan 1774' of the race of Jenghiz, saving only the religious rights of the sultan as caliph of Islam.

The dispute, at first of little importance, developed in seriousness during the next year or two, owing to the avowed intention of Russia, which by conquest or treaties with independent chiefs had acquired all the high land between the Caspian and the Black Sea, to take possession of the low lands along the coast, between Anapa and Poti, of which the sultan claimed the sovereignty.

It runs almost parallel to the western shore of the Caspian, and west of Astara is only io or 12 m.

South of Resht this section is broken through at almost a right angle by the Safid Rud (White river),and along it runs the principal commercial road between the Caspian and inner Persia, Resht-Kazvin-Teheran.

The northern slopes of the Elburz and the lowlands which lie between them and the Caspian, and together form the provinces of Gilan, Mazandaran and Astarabad, are covered with dense forest and traversed by hundreds (Persian writers say 1362) of perennial rivers and streams. The breadth of the lowlands between the foot of the hills and the sea is from 2 to 25 m., the greatest breadth being in the meridian of Resht in Gilan, and in the districts of Amol, Sari and Barfurush in Mazandaran.

The great chain of mountains which, under the names of Paropamisus and Hindu-Kush, extends from the Caspian to the Pamirs is interrupted some 180 m.

Finally, after a comparatively short run towards the N.N.E., it branches out into a large delta on the west side of the Caspian Sea.

Opposite its mouth it forms large sand-banks in the Caspian, and is nowhere navigable.

They were the Venetians of the Caspian and the Euxine, the organizers of the transit between the two basins, the universal carriers between East and West; and Itil was the meeting-place of the commerce of Persia, Byzantium, Armenia, Russia and the Bulgarians of the middle Volga.

Amongst the nomadic Ugrians and agricultural Slays of the north their frontier fluctuated widely, and in its zenith Khazaria extended from the Dnieper to Bolgari upon the middle Volga, and along the eastern shore of the Caspian to Astarabad.

Such points, however, need not here be further pursued than to establish the presence of this white race around the Caspian and the Euxine throughout historic times.

They are then described as "Turks from the East," a powerful nation which held the coasts of the Caspian and the Euxine, and took tribute of the Viatitsh, the Severians and the Polyane.

A remnant of the nation took refuge in an island of the Caspian (Siahcouye); others retired to the Caucasus; part emigrated to the district of Kasakhi in Georgia, and appear for the last time joining with Georgia in her successful effort to throw off the yoke of the Seljuk Turks (1089).

Between it and other ports in the Caspian communication is maintained by the mail-steamers of the Caucasus and Mercury Steam Navigation Company and many vessels of commercial firms with head offices chiefly at Baku.

In this leisurely journey Pallas went by Kasan to the Caspian, spent some time among the Kalmucks, crossed the Urals to Tobolsk, visited the Altai mountains, traced the Irtish to Kolyvan, went on to Tomsk and the Yenisei, crossed Lake Baikal, and extended his journey to the frontiers of China.

Russia, stretching between the lower river Don and the Caspian Sea, through the Don Cossacks territory and between the government of Astrakhan on the .N.

The eastern stream dies away in the sandy steppe about 25 miles from the Caspian, though it is said sometimes to reach the Kuma through the Huiduk, a tributary of the Kuma.

For its significance as a former (geologic) connexion between the Sea of Azov and the Caspian Sea, see Caspian Sea.

He reached Persia by way of Moscow, Kazan and Astrakhan, landing at Nizabad in Daghestan after a voyage in the Caspian; from Shemakha in Shirvan he made an expedition to the Baku peninsula, being perhaps the first modern scientist to visit these fields of "eternal fire."

Similar wars were going on against the mountain tribes of Armenia and Iran, especially against the Cadusians on the Caspian Sea.

Magnesium sulphate amounts to 4.7% of the total salts of sea-water according to Dittmar, but to 23.6% of the salts of the Caspian according to Lebedinzeff; in the ocean magnesium chloride amounts to 10.9% of the total salts, in the Caspian only to 4.5%; on the other hand calcium sulphate in the ocean amounts to 3.6%, in the Caspian to 6.9 This disparity makes it extremely difficult to view ocean water as merely a watery extract of the salts existing in the rocks of the land.

The highest mountain of the province is in its eastern part, Mount Savelan, with an elevation of 15,792 ft., and the Talish Mountains, which run from north to south, parallel to and at no great distance from the Caspian, have an altitude of 9000 ft.

The principal rivers are the Aras and Kizil Uzain, both receiving numerous tributaries and flowing into the Caspian, and the Jaghatu, Tatava, Murdi, Aji and others, which drain into the Urmia lake.

In view of this general demoralization not even the victorious outcome of the campaigns in Georgia, the Crimea, Daghestan, Yemen and Persia (1578-1590) could prevent the decay of the Ottoman power; indeed, by weakening the Mussulman states, they hastened the process, since they facilitated the advance of Russia to the Black Sea and the Caspian.

No Caspian deposits are found on or within the Ergeni hills.

Sailing into the Caspian, he ravaged the Persian coasts from Derbend to Baku, massacred the inhabitants of the great emporium of Resht, and in the spring of 1669 established himself on the isle of Suina, off which, in July, he annihilated a Persian fleet sent against him.

Tabriz was for a long period the emporium for the trade of Persia on the west, but since the opening of the railway through the Caucasus and greater facilities for transport on the Caspian, much of its trade with Russia has been diverted to Astara and Resht, while the insecurity on the Tabriz-Trebizond route since 1878 has diverted much commerce to the Bagdad road.

A railway runs from the Caspian Sea, via Tiflis and the Suram tunnel, to Kutais, and thence to Poti and Batum, and from Kutais to the Tkvibuli coal and manganese mines.

His conquests to the west and north-west led him among the Mongols of the Caspian and to the banks of the Ural and the Volga; 1 The pastorals in this aspect are closer to Clemens Romanus than to Ignatius.

Dreissensia; lives in fresh water, but originated from the Caspian Sea; introduced into England about 1824.

Names, more or less allied to one another, are in vogue among the peoples of the Caucasus, the Caspian Sea, Armenia and Persia, and there is a Sanskrit name and several others analogous or different in modern Indian languages.

It includes the Kuba plain on the north-east slope of the Caucasus; the eastern extremity of that range from the Shad-dagh (13,960 ft.) and the Bazardyuz (14,727 ft.) to the Caspian, where it terminates in the Apsheron peninsula; the steppes of the lower Kura and Aras on the south of the Caucasus, and a narrow coast-belt between the Anti-Caucasus and the Caspian.

The Caspian remained; and it had for long been a common saying with foreign merchants that the best way of tapping the riches of the Orient was to secure possession of this vast inland lake.

But so long as the Turks and Tatars made the surrounding steppes uninhabitable the Caspian was a possession of but doubtful value.

When in command of the fleet of Seleucus (285) he undertook a voyage of exploration on the Caspian Sea to discover possible trade routes, especially for communication with the peoples of northern India.

He came to the conclusion that the Caspian was a gulf or inlet, and that it was possible to enter it by sea from the Indian Ocean.

Eventually this interesting church was engulfed by the rising tide of Mahommedan conquest, but not before one of their bishops, named Israel, had converted (677-703) the Huns who lay to the north of the Caspian and had translated the Bible and liturgies into their language.

He mentions the map of Armenia and the neighbourhood of the Caspian Sea, which was sent to Rome by the staff of Corbulo in A.D.

Out of the crusades, however, arose other efforts to develop the work which Nestorian missionaries from Bagdad, Edessa and Nisibis had already inaugurated along the Malabar coast, in the island of Ceylon, and in the neighbourhood of the Caspian Sea.

P. insititia is wild in southern Europe, in Armenia, and along the shores of the Caspian.

The coastline of the Gulf of Mortvyi Kultuk on the north-east is, on the other hand, formed by a range of low calcareous hills, constituting the rampart of the Ust-Urt plateau, which intervenes between the Caspian and the Sea of Aral.

This subsidiary basin is separated from the Caspian by a narrow sandbar, pierced by a strait 14 m.

It is separated from (3), the southern and deepest section of the Caspian, by a submarine ridge (30 to 150 fathoms of water), which links the main range of the Caucasus on the west with the Kopet-dagh in the Transcaspian region on the east.

A little east of the Gulf of Enzeli, which resembles the Kara-boghaz, though on a much smaller scale, the Sefid-rud pours into the Caspian the drainage of the western end of the Elburz range, and several smaller streams bring down the precipitation that falls on the northern face of the same range farther to the east.

Near its south-east corner the Caspian is entered by the Atrek, which drains the mountain ranges of the Turkoman (N.E.) frontier of Persia.

The catchment area from which the Caspian is fed extends to a very much greater distance on the west and north than it does on the south and east.

Altogether it is estimated (by von Dingelstedt) that the total discharge of all the rivers emptying into the Caspian amounts annually to a volume equal to 174.5 cub.

In point of fact, however, the entire volume of fresh water poured into the Caspian is only just sufficient to compensate for the loss by evaporation.

The level of the Caspian, however, was formerly about the same as the existing level of the Black Sea, although now some 86 ft.

There can be no real doubt that formerly the area of the Caspian was considerably greater than it is at the present time.

Nearly one hundred and fifty years ago Pallas had his attention arrested by the existence of the salt lakes and dry saline deposits on the steppes to the east of the Caspian, and at great distances from its shores, and by the presence in the same localities of shells of the same marine fauna as that which now inhabits that sea, and he suggested the obvious explanation that those regions must formerly have been covered by the waters of the sea.

More than this, the Caspian was also, it is pretty certain, at the same epoch, and later, in direct communication with the Sea of Azov, no doubt by way of the Manych depression; for in the limans or lagoons of the Black Sea many faunal species exist which are not only identical with species that are found in the Caspian, but also many which, though not exactly identical, are closely allied.

In the opinion of Russian geologists the separation of the Caspian from the great ocean must have taken place at a comparatively recent geological epoch.

Eastwards it penetrated up the Uzboi depression between the Great and Little Balkhan ranges, so that that depression, which is strewn (as mentioned above) with Post-Tertiary marine deposits, was not (as is sometimes supposed) an old bed of the Oxus, but a gulf of the Caspian.

After the great ice cap had thawed and a period of general desiccation set in, the Caspian began to shrink in area, and simultaneously its connexions with the Black Sea and the Sea of Aral were severed.

This last, together with some of the Mysidae and the species Glyptonotus entomon, exhibits Arctic characteristics, which has suggested the idea of a geologically recent connexion between the Caspian and the Arctic, an idea of which no real proofs have been as yet discovered.

No other inland sea is so richly stocked with fish as the Caspian, especially off the mouths of the large rivers, the Volga, Ural, Terek and Kura.

The proportion of salt in the water of the Caspian, though varying in different parts and at different seasons, is generally much less than the proportion in oceanic water, and even less than the proportion in the water of the Black Sea.

In fact the salinity of the Caspian is only three-eights of that of the ocean.

While the proportion of common salt to sulphate of magnesia is as r r to r in the water of the Black Sea and as 2 to 1 in the Caspian water generally, it is as 12.8 to 5.03 in the Kara-boghaz.

The temperature of the air over the Caspian basin is remarkable for its wide range both geographically and seasonally.

The currents of the Caspian were investigated by the Knipovich expedition; it detected two of special prominence, a south-going current along the west shore and a north-going current along the east shore.

The development of the petroleum industry in the Apeshron peninsula (Baku) and the opening (1886) of the Transcaspian railway have greatly increased the traffic across the Caspian Sea.

The Russians keep a small naval flotilla on the Caspian, all other nations being debarred from doing so by the treaty of Turkmanchai (1828).

At various times and by various persons, but more particularly by Peter the Great, the project has been mooted of cutting a canal between the Volga and the Don, and so establishing unrestricted water communication between the Caspian and the Black Sea; but so far none of these schemes has taken practical shape.

In 1900 the Hydrotechnical Congress of Russia discussed the plan of constructing a canal to connect the Caspian more directly with the Black Sea by cutting an artificial waterway about 22 ft.

Mushketov, Turkestan (St Petersburg, 1886), with bibliographical references; Ivashintsev, Hydrographic Exploration of the Caspian Sea (in Russian), with atlas (2 vols., 1866); Philippov, Marine Geography of the Caspian Basin (in Russian, 1877); Memoirs of the Aral-Caspian Expedition of 1876-1877 (2 vols., in Russian), edited by the St Petersburg Society of Naturalists; Andrusov, "A Sketch of the Development of the Caspian Sea and its Inhabitants," in Zapiski of Russ.

He commanded the advanced guard of General Lomakine's column from Kinderly Bay, in the Caspian, to join General Verefkin, from Orenburg, in the expedition to Khiva in 1874, and, after great suffering on the desert march, took a prominent part in the capture of the Khivan capital.

It is connected by rail with Krasnovodsk (1085 m.) on the Caspian, and since 1905 with Orenburg (1150 m.).

Enclosed seas, such as the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, the Black Sea, the Dead Sea, the Caspian and others, are dependent of course for the proportion and quality of their saline matter on local circumstances (see Ocean) .

Deposits of rock-salt have evidently been formed by the evaporation of salt water, probably in areas of inland drainage or enclosed basins, like the Dead Sea and the Great Salt Lake of Utah, or perhaps in some cases in an arm of the sea partially cut off, like the Kara Bughaz, which forms a natural salt-pan on the east side of the Caspian.

The lake is surrounded on the north by steppes; on the west by the rocky plateau of Ust-Urt, which separates it from the Caspian; on the south by the alluvial district of Khiva; and on the east by the Kyzyl-kum, or Red Sand Desert.

The opinion that Lake Aral periodically disappeared, which was for a long time countenanced by Western geographers, loses more and more probability now that it is evident that at a relatively recent period the Caspian Sea extended much farther eastward than it does now, and that Lake Aral communicated with it through the Sary-kamysh depression.

The present writer is even inclined to think that, besides this southern communication with the Caspian, Lake Aral may have been, even in historical times, connected with the Mortvyi Kultuk (Tsarevich) Gulf of the Caspian, discharging part of its water into that sea through a depression of the Ust-Urt plateau, which is marked by a chain of lakes (Chumyshty, Asmantai).

In this case it might have been easily confounded with a gulf of the Caspian (as by Jenkinson).

An important feature in connexion with the course of the Oxus is the discussion that has arisen with regard to its former debouch- Junction ment into the Caspian Sea.

The former connexion between the Caspian and Aral by means of the gulf now represented by the Sary Kamish depression seems to be admitted by Russian scientists, nor would there appear to be much doubt about the connexion between the Khivan oasis and the northern extremity of the Sary Kamish.

The tribes from east of the Caspian had conquered Persia in 1218.

Westward they extended nearly to the shores of the Caspian; eastward he repeatedly entered India as a conqueror.

Its shrines and monasteries stretched in a continuous line from the Caspian to the Pacific, and still extend from the confines of the Russian empire to the equatorial archipelago.

The disaster at Maiwand, and the Russian advance east of the Caspian, prevented the proposed withdrawal from Quetta; but Kandahar was evacuated, Abdur Rahman was left in complete control of his country and was given an annual subsidy of twelve lakhs of rupees in 1883.

During the preceding decades Russia had gradually advanced her power from the Caspian across the Turkoman steppes to the border of Afghanistan, and Russian intrigue was largely responsible for the second Afghan war.

Another division pressed farther westwards and probably made its headquarters near the northern end of the Caspian Sea and the southern part of the Ural Mountains.

Abdallah, another brother of Mahommed and Ibrahim, who had taken refuge in the land of Dailam on the south-western shores of the Caspian Sea, succeeded in forming a powerful party, and publicly claimed the Caliphate.

Harun immediately sent against him an army of 50,000 men, under the command of Facll, whom he made governor of all the Caspian provinces.

His empire stretched from the Caspian to the Persian Sea, and in the west to the eastern frontier of Syria.

Whether the tradition which makes Ararat the resting-place of Noah's Ark is of any historical value or not, there is at least poetical fitness in the hypothesis, inasmuch as this mountain is about equally distant from the Black Sea and the Caspian, from the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf.

In the winter1876-1877a disease which appears to have been plague appeared in two villages in the extreme north of the province of Khorasan, about 25 leagues from the south-east angle of the Caspian Sea.

In March 1877 plague broke out in Resht, a town of 20,000 inhabitants, in the province of Ghilan, near the Caspian Sea at its south-west angle, from which there is a certain amount of trade with Astrakhan.

A few cases of plague occurred in January 1877 at Baku on the west shore of the Caspian, in Russian territory.'

The Astrakhan disease may have been imported from Resht or Baku, or may have been caused concurrently with the epidemics of these places by some cause affecting the basin of the Caspian generally.

It occupies an advantageous position on the great artery of Russian trade, at a place where the manufactured and agricultural products of the basin of the Oka meet the metal wares from that of the Kama, the corn and salt brought from the south-eastern governments, the produce of the Caspian fisheries, and the various wares imported from Siberia, Central Asia, Caucasia and Persia.

Shipbuilding, especially for the transport of petroleum on the Caspian Sea, and steamboat building, have recently advanced considerably.

It is situated on both banks of the Heraz, or Herhaz river, which is crossed here by a very narrow stone bridge of twelve arches and flows into the Caspian Sea 12 m.

Expeditions were talked of to the Caspian Sea and Ethiopia, but Nero was no soldier and quickly turned to a more congenial field.

By a system of canals which connect the upper Volga with the Neva, the commercial mouth of the Volga has been transferred, so to speak, from the Caspian to the Baltic, thus making St Petersburg, the capital and chief seaport of Russia, the chief port of the Volga basin as well.

At its confluence with the Oka the Volga enters the broad lacustrine depression which must have communicated with the Caspian during the post-Pliocene period by means of at least a broad strait.

At Tsaritsyn the river takes a sharp turn in a south-easterly direction towards the Caspian; it enters the Caspian steppes, and a few miles above Tsaritsyn sends off a branch - the Akhtuba - which accompanies it for 330 m.

The network of shallow and still limans or "cut-offs" in the delta of the Volga and the shallow waters of the northern Caspian, freshened as these are by the water of the Volga, the Ural, the Kura and the Terek, is exceedingly favourable to the breeding of fish, and as a whole constitutes one of the most productive fishing grounds in the world.

Seal-hunting is carried on off the Volga mouth, and every year about 40,000 of Phoca vitulina are killed to the north of the Manghishlak peninsula on the east side of the Caspian.

The tiger is exclusively Asiatic, but has a very wide range in that continent, having been found in almost all suitable localities south of a line drawn from the river Euphrates, passing along the southern shores of the Caspian and Sea of Aral by Lake Baikal to the Sea of Okhotsk.

She was with him, too, during his earlier Caspian campaigns, and was obliged on this occasion to shear off her beautiful hair and wear a close-fitting fur cap to protect her from the rays of the sun.

From Astara eastwards the boundary is formed by the shore of the Caspian until it touches the Bay of Hassan Kul north of As arabad.

East of the Caspian Sea and beginning at Has an Kuli Bay the river Atrek serves as the frontier as far as Chat.

The frontier east of the Caspian was defined by the Akhal-Khorasan Boundary Convention of the 21st of December 1881 and the frontier convention of the 8th of July 1893.

Taking the Kuren Dagh or Kopet Dagh to form the northern scarp of this plateau east of the Caspian, we find a prolongation of it in the highlands north of the political frontier on the Aras, and even in the Caucasus itself.

The real lowlands are the tracts near the sea-coast belonging to the forest-clad provinces of the Caspian in the north and the shores of the Persian Gulf below Basra and elsewhere.

The first district comprises most of the south-western provinces and the whole of the coast region as far east as Gwetter; the second relates to the tracts west, south and east of the southern part of the Caspian Sea.

The tracts south of the Caspian are not more than 20 to 50 m.

On the east the watershed of the Caspian gradually increases in breadth, the foot of the scarp extending considerably to the north of the south-eastern angle of that sea, three degrees east of which it turns to the south-east, parallel to the axis of the Kopet Dagh.

Four rivers belonging essentially to Persia, in reference to the Caspian watershed, are the Seafid Rud or Kizil Uzain on the southwest, the Herhaz on the south and the Gurgan and Atrek at the south-eastern corner of that inland sea.

It has a very tortuous course of nearly 500 m., for the distance from its source to the Caspian, 57 m.

The Gurgan rises on the Armutlu plateau in Khorasan east of Astarabad, and enters the Caspian in 37 4 N., northwest of Astarabad, after a course of about 200 m.

The Atrek rises a few miles from Kuchan and enters the Caspian at the Bay of Hassan Kuli in 37 21 N., after a course of about 300 m.

Along the shores of the Caspian, particularly in Gilan and Mazandaran, and of the Persian Gulf from the mouth of the Shatt el Arab down to Bander Abbasi, the air during a great part of the year contains much moisturedry- and wet-bulb thermometers at times indicating the same temperatureand at nights there are heavy falls of dew.

Khorasan to the Perso-Afghan border, its western limit being indicated by a long line to the northwest from near Shiraz, taking in the whole upper country to the Russian frontier and the Elburz; (2) the provinces south and south-west of the Caspian; (3) a narrow strip of wooded country south-west of the Zagros range, from the Diyala River in Turkey in Asia to Shiraz; (4) the Persian side of the Shatt-el-Arab, and Aralictan, east of the Tigris; and (5) the shores of the Persian Gulf and Baluchistan.

In the Caspian provinces he found the fauna, on the whole, Palaearctic also, most of the animals being identical with those of south-eastern Europe.

The tiger is peculiar to the Caspian provinces.

There is also a herring which frequents only the southern half of the Caspian, not passing over the shallow part of the sea which extends from Baku eastwards.

The Persian fruit is excellent and abundant, and large quantities, principally dried and called khushkbar (dry fruit), as quinces, peaches, apricots, plums (of several kinds), raisins, figs, almonds, pistachios, walnuts and dates (the last only from the south), as well as oranges (only from the Caspian provinces), are exported.

Gmelin, who explored the southern shores of the Caspian in 1771, observed that the wines of Gilan were, made from the wild grape.

The fisheries of the Caspian littoral are leased to a Russian firm (since 1868), and most of the fish goes to Russia (31,120 tOns, value 556,125, 10 1906-1907).

Commerce.The principal centres of commerce are Tabriz, Teheran, Resht, Meshed and Yezd; the principal, ports Bander Abbasi, Lingah, Bushire and Muhamrah on the Persian Gulf, and Astara, Enzeli, Meshed i Sar and Bander i Gez on the Caspian.

All the shipping on the Caspian is under the Russian flagi and no returns of the arrivals and departures of vessels at the Persian ports were published before 1906.

Another general, Patrocles, took up the investigation of the Caspian, already begun by Alexander.

Then with the Caspian Gatesthe pass between Elburz and the central desert, through which lay the route from west Iran to east Iranthe upper provinces begin; (8) Choarene and (9)

Empire stretching from the Caspian to the Yellow Sea was divided up among his sons.

There is no evidence to show that he did much to consolidate his grandfathers conquests south of the Caspian.

The Sufi or Safawid (Safawi) Dynasty (149g1736).Sheikh Saifu d-Din Izhak lineally descended from Musa, the seventh Sb Ikh imamwas a resident at Ardebil (Ardabil) southS,,ffi,.d.DIfl.west of the Caspian, some time during the I4th century.

Here he was enabled, through the assistance of a friend of his father, to raise a small force with which to take possession of Baku on the Caspian, and thence to march upon Shemakha in Shirvan, a town abandoned to him without a struggle.

Peace was concluded between the two sovereigns in 1590; but the terms were unfavourable to Persia, who lost thereby Tabriz and one or more of the Caspian ports.

During his reign Khorasan was invaded by the ever-encroaching Uzbegs, the Kipchak Tatars plundered the shores of the Caspian, and the island of Kishm was taken by the Dutch; but the kingdom suffered otherwise no material loss.

The Turks seized on Tiflis, Tabriz and Hamadan, while Peter the Great, whose aid had been sought by the friendless Tahmasp, fitted out a fleet on the Caspian.2 The Russians occupied Shirvan, and the province of Gilan south-west of the Caspian;3 and Peter made a treaty with Tahmasp II.

In May 1722 a flotilla descended the Volga commanded by Tsar Peter and on the 19th of July the Russian flag first waved over the Caspian.

There is,1 however, also shown, as a result of the Afghan intrusion and the impotency of the later Safawid kings, a long broad strip of country to the west, including Tabriz and Hamadan, marked conquests of the Turks, and the whole west shore of the Caspian from Astrakan to Mazandaran marked conquests of the czar of Muscovy; Makran, written Mecran, is designated a warlike independent nation.

About the time of setting out on his Indian expedition he was described as a most comely man, upwards of 6 ft., tall, well-proportioned, of robust make and constitution; inclined to be fat, but prevented by the fatigue he underwent; with fine, large black eyes and eyebrows; of sanguine complexion, made more manly by the influence of sun and weather; a loud, strong voice; a moderate wine-drinker; fond of simple diet, such as pilaos and plain dishes, but often neglectful of meals altogether, and satisfied, if occasion required, with parched peas and water, always to be procured.i During the reign of Nadir an attempt was made to establish a British Caspian trade with Persia.

Forster was travelling homeward by the southern shores of the Caspian in January I784, and from him we gather many interesting details of the locality and period.

Fath Ali Shah undertook, at the outset of ith his reign, a contest with Russia on the western side, of War,w the Caspian, which became constant and harassing Russ a.

Among the hard conditions for the latter country were the cession in perpetuity of the khanates of Erivan and Nakhichevan, the inability to have an armed vessel in the Caspian, and the payment of a war indemnity of some 3,000,000.

The Sunnite Turk was almost a greater enemy to his neighbor the Shiite than the formidable Muscovite, who had curtailed him of Rupture so large a section of his territory west of the Caspian.

His own special kingdom comprised the countries which are now called Hungary and Transylvania, his capital being possibly not far from the modern city of Buda-Pest; but having made the Ostrogoths, the Gepidae and many other Teutonic tribes his subjectallies, and having also sent his invading armies into Media, he seems for nearly twenty years to have ruled practically without a rival from the Caspian to the Rhine.

The former is watered by the Kashaf-rud (Tortoise River), or river of Meshed, flowing east to the Hari-rud, their junction forming the Tejen, which sweeps round the Daman-i-Kuh, or northern skirt of the outer range, towards the Caspian but loses itself in the desert long before reaching it.

The Kuren Dagh and Ala Dagh enclose the valley of the Atrek River, which flows west and southwest into the Caspian at Hassan Kuli Bay.

The western offshoots of the Ala Dagh in the north and the mountains of Astarabad in the south enclose the valley of the Gurgan River, which also flows westwards and parallel to the Atrek to the southeastern corner of the Caspian.

A motley host, made up out of the tribes bordering on the Black Sea and the Caspian, hovered round his small army, but failed to hinder him from laying siege to the town.

In addition to agriculture, which (with the exception of the Usuri Cossacks) is sufficient to supply their needs and usually to leave a certain surplus, they"carry on extensive cattle and horse breeding, vine culture in Caucasia, fishing on the Don, the Ural, and the Caspian, hunting, bee-culture, &c. The extraction of coal, gold and other minerals which are found on their territories is mostly rented to strangers, who also own most factories.

It is in this section that the entire mountain system is narrowest, and here it is that (apart from the " gate " at Derbent close beside the Caspian) the principal means of communication exist between north and south, between the steppes of southern Russia and the highlands of Armenia and Asia Minor.

As the main range approaches the Caspian its granite core gradually disappears, giving place to Palaeozoic schists, which spread down both the northern and the southern slopes.

The Eastern Section of the Caucasus gradually dies away east of Baba-dagh (11,930 ft.) towards the Caspian, terminating finally in the peninsula of Apsheron.

It is, however, continued under the waters of the Caspian, as stated in the article on that sea, and reappears on its eastern side in the Kopet-dagh, which skirts the north-east frontier of Persia.

But its waters become absorbed in the sands of the desert steppes before they reach the Caspian.

Both rivers discharge their waters into the Caspian; as also does the Zumgail, a small stream which drains the eastern extremity of the Caucasus range in the government of Baku.

He writes to correspondents making enquiries about the tides in the Euxine and Caspian Seas.

Astrakhan is the chief port on the Caspian Sea and the headquarters of the Russian Caspian fleet.

Its trade, principally in the hands of Armenians, is still important, but is chiefly a transit trade between Russia and Persia by way of Astara, a port on the Caspian 30 m.

In the north the Caspian is encircled by the level and swampy lowlands, varying in breadth from io to 30 m., partly under impenetrable jungle, partly under rice, cotton, sugar and other crops.

This section is fringed northwards by the sandy beach of the Caspian, here almost destitute of natural harbours, and rises somewhat abruptly inland to the second section, comprising the northern slopes and spurs of the Elburz, which approach at some points within 1 or 2 m.

The lowlands, rising but a few feet above the Caspian, and subject to frequent floodings, are extremely malarious, while the highlands, culminating with the magnificent Demavend (19,400 ft.), enjoy a tolerably healthy climate.

The rivers themselves, of which there are as many as fifty, are little more than mountain torrents, all rising on the northern slopes of Elburz, flowing mostly in independent channels to the Caspian, and subject to sudden freshets and inundations along their lower course.

Near their mouths the rivers, running counter to the prevailing winds and waves of the Caspian, form long sand-hills 20 to 30 ft.

The most remarkable circumstance connected with the distribution of seals is the presence of members of the order in the three isolated great lakes or inland seas of Central Asia - the Caspian, Aral and Baikal - which, notwithstanding their long isolation, have varied but slightly from species now inhabiting the Polar Ocean.

The Manych, another large affluent on the left, marks the ancient line of water connexion between the Sea of Azov and the Caspian Sea.

The plains and lowlands of the Turanian basin are subdivided by a line drawn from north-east to south-west along a slight range of hills running from the sources of the Ishim towards the south-east corner of the Caspian (Bujnurd and Elburz edge of Khorasan).

While the Sea of Aral remained in connexion with the Caspian, the desiccation of the Lake Balkash basin, and its break-up into smaller separate basins, were already going on.

The Ust-Urt plateau and the Mugojar Mountains prevented it from spreading north-westward, and a narrow channel connected it along the Uzboi with the Caspian, which sent a broad gulf to the east, spread up to the Volga, and was connected by the Manych with the Black Sea basin.

The former, built in 1880-1888, starts at Krasnovodsk on the Caspian and runs east-south-east between the Kara-kum desert and the Kopet-dagh Mountains until it reaches the oasis of Tejen.

Wild hemp still grows on the banks of the lower Ural, and the Volga, near the Caspian Sea.

It would appear that the native country of the hemp plant is in some part of temperate Asia, probably near the Caspian Sea.

Today, the best caviar is obtained from the sturgeon fishes of the Caspian Sea.

There was also a major oil pipeline from the Caspian to the Black Sea, passing through Chechnya, which was valuable to Russia.

Gull-billed tern 40+ at TG Caspian tern 5 at TG Collared dove A common bird in villages.

The exploration of the waterways round about the empire was Alexander's immediate concern, the discovery of the presumed connexion of the Caspian with the Northern Ocean, the opening of a maritime route from Babylon to Egypt round Arabia.

When Darius had killed the usurper Smerdis and gained the crown, a new usurper, Vahyazdata, who likewise pretended to 1 To the Pateiskhoreis belongs the lance-bearer of Darius, "Gobryas (Gaubaruva) the Patishuvari," mentioned in his tombinscription; they occur also in an inscription of Esarhaddon as Patush-ara, eastwards of Media, in Choarene at the Caspian gates; the Kyrtii are the Kurds.

Other late sources narrate the destruction of Jericho and a deportation of the Jews to Babylonia and to Hyrcania (on the Caspian Sea).

If we examine the hydrographic basins of the three divisions of Asia thus indicated we find that the northern division, including the drainage falling into the Arctic Sea,the Aralo- Hydro- Caspian depression, or the Mediterranean, embraces an graphs area of about 6,394,500 sq.

The geographical map of the country is fairly complete, and with it much detailed information is now accessible regarding the coast and harbours of the Persian Gulf, the routes and passes of the interior, and the possibilities of commercial development by the construction of trade roads uniting the Caspian, the Karun, the Persian Gulf, and India, via Seistan.

It is the centre of caravan routes leading to the Caspian Sea and the Uralsk province.

The word "pear" or its equivalent occurs in all the Celtic languages, while in Slavonic and other dialects different appellations, but still referring to the same thing, are found - a diversity and multiplicity of nomenclature which led Alphonse de Candolle to infer a very ancient cultivation of the tree from the shores of the Caspian to those of the Atlantic. A certain race of pears, with white down on the under surface of their leaves, is supposed to have originated from P. nivalis, and their fruit is chiefly used in France in the manufacture of Perry (see Cider).

Nub II., in order to retain at least a nominal sway over those Afghan territories, confirmed him in his high position and even invested Sabuktagin's son Mahmud with the governorship of Khorasan, in reward for the powerful help they had given him in his desperate struggles with a confederation of disaffected nobles of Bokhara under the leadership of Fa'iq and the troops of the Dailamites, a dynasty that had arisen on the shores of the Caspian Sea and wrested already from the hands of the Samanids all their western provinces.

To avoid the vengeance of the emperor, she fled with him to the court of the sultan of Damascus; but not deeming themselves safe there, they continued their perilous journey through Persia and Turkestan,round the Caspian Sea and across Mount Caucasus, until at length they settled among the Turks on the borders of Trebizond.

But the aggressive policy of Russia in the direction of the Caspian and Black Seas became more and more evident; complaints reached the Porte of a violation of the neutrality of Kabardia, of a seditious propaganda in Moldavia by Russian monks, and of Russian aid given to the malcontents in Servia and Montenegro.

Their home was in the spurs of the Caucasus and along the shores of the Caspian - called by medieval Moslem geographers Bahr-al-Khazar ("sea of the Khazars"); their cities, all populous and civilized commercial centres, were Itil, the capital, upon the delta of the Volga, the "river of the Khazars," Semender (Tarkhu), the older capital, Khamlidje or Khalendsch, Belendscher, the outpost towards Armenia, and Sarkel on the Don.

It is built up of Tertiary deposits, belonging to the Sarmatian division of the Miocene period and covered with loess and black earth, and its escarpments represent the old shore-line of the Caspian.

True caviars come from the sturgeon once endemic to the Caspian Sea.

Beluga is the top of the line caviar that hails from Russia near the Caspian Sea.