communications being maintained by boat alonean effort will be made not to carry the river into its old channel beyond that town, but, by the construction of a canal-only three miles in length -from it to the Kunya-darya-lik, to divert the waters of the Loudon into that main channel which

eventually becomes the Uzboi. We say that the Russians might attempt something of this sort, not that we think it would be successful, but because the tone of Russian official and scientific circles seems to be that something should now be done in this matter. Although the Loudon channel so far as Kunya Urgendj may be in a good state of preservation compared with the others, it is difficult to conceive how the Oxus is to be turned by it into the Uzboi, even if the Uzboi had been dug out and prepared for its reception.

There is consequently a very slight prospect indeed of the re-flooding of the Loudon canal being attended by any permanent result in so far as the diversion of the Oxus is concerned. Rather is it probable that the Khivans may seek to stem at once this fresh inroad, which threatens to flood a settled portion of the khanate and also to again fill up that portion of the country towards Aibughir which has become inhabited and settled. If the Russians find that their own design is futile they can scarcely forbid the repairing of the dam at Bend, which will be constructed on a stronger basis than before. In the absence of specific information of the state of things in Khiva it would be hazardous to venture an opinion as to whether the

breaking-in of the Oxus has been regulated by human means or not; but its importance, save as an incentive. to the Russians, is certainly very slight. *

There certainly appears to be no justification for the very jubilant views that prevailed at a meeting of the Russian Imperial Geographical Society, when the secretary, in his lengthy report, did not add much to what was already known of this inundation. He read a letter from the Khan of Khiva, however, which threw a ray of light upon the cause of the phenomenon. According to Seyyid Mahomed, the winter of 1877-78 was remarkably severe in Central Asia, and a mass of snow accumulated which in the spring caused floods more extensive than any that have taken place during the present century. All the way along the lower course of the Oxus the surface of the river rose to the top of the bank, and at length the waters broke through the barrier at three different points below Khiva, each about forty miles apart, and the inundation of the Kara Kum commenced. No opposition being encountered by the flood, the waters naturally swept towards the depression in the desert which originally held the Oxus, and forming a junction in this hollow, they filled up a number of stagnant lakes, including the spacious Sarykamish, and continued their west

* The principal distances explaining the circumstances previously narrated are: from Bend to Kunya Urgendj, thirty-five miles; Kunya-Urgendj to the Kunya-darya-lik, two and a half miles; from the latter point to Sary kamish, one hundred and ten miles; Sary kamish to the Igdy wells, one hundred and eighty miles; and the Igdy wells to Balkhan bay, two hundred and fifty miles.

ward course in the direction of the Caspian, until the limit of their volume was reached. As soon as the spring floods began to subside, the Khan set labourers. to work to repair the river bank, and by this time probably two of the rents have been closed. The third, however, on account of its size, will have to remain open until the Russians assist in the work of restoration, and, at any rate, will not be meddled with until it has been examined by the engineers despatched by General Possiet to view the effects of the inundation. In all likelihood the breach will be kept open altogether, the floods having occasioned a material benefit to Khiva in covering the contiguous desert with a convenient waterway (?), which may be ultimately extended to the Caspian. Without any effort on the part of Russia the four hundred and fifty miles of burning desert, treeless and waterless, intervening between Krasnovodsk and Khiva have been reduced to one hundred and sixty, and at a stroke the Oxus has opened up a highway which bids fair to change the fate of Central Asia.

Is the task, then, of bringing the Oxus back to its old Caspian outlet impossible? Must the design be given up as unattainable? Are all the aspirations that have been formed, on the supposition that it could be effected, to be abandoned? Herr Kiepert declares that it is impossible, and that this prospect is a mere delusion and a dream of Slav credulity.* He goes on to say that the only reasonable project would be to construct

* See "National Zeitung," 28th November, 1878.

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a railway from the Caspian to the Aral. It should here be stated that if the bed of the Uzboi is to be utilised as the road for this line it will require to be levelled almost as carefully as if it were to receive the Oxus; and consequently the expense in this particular would not be much greater for either project. But is not Herr Kiepert a little rash in making this sweeping assertion, or rather, which is more to the point, do Russian authorities take the same gloomy view of its feasibility? Whoever knows anything of Russian official and scientific circles will at once say that they do not, as witness the absurdly over-sanguine meeting of the Imperial Geographical Society just quoted. The principal points of Herr Kiepert's criticism are the following. He begins by calling attention to the 're-appearance of the great Central Asian sea-serpent, that 'dream of Slav credulity,' the restoration of the Amou Darya, or Oxus, to its ancient bed; and he considers that General Stebnitzki's report of his explorations in 1873-5 brings down to its real proportions a 'warmed-up myth' which has at times dazzled Russian ambition and ignorance, from Peter the Great's days to ours, with the extravagant idea of the possession of an uninterrupted waterway from Moscow to Khulm or Kundus-that is, to within about one hundred miles from the Hindoo Koosh. It has been conclusively shown by Von Gojen and Lerch that the statements and traditions of the ancient Arabs and others, which describe the Oxus as once flowing, not, as now, into the Aral, but into the Caspian, were mere speculative combinations exclusively based on the fact

of the existence of an abandoned river-bed at certain points of the plateau or isthmus of Ust Urt, which lies between the two great inland seas. Professor Kiepert alludes to Peter the Great's recognition of the value of this old channel as an eventual element in the realisation of his plans of Asiatic military or commercial enterprise-plans on which, we should observe, authentic information is as silent as it is on the hydraulic hints said to have been given to Peter by a certain Turcoman who visited Astrachan. Better informed than Peter, the Czar Alexander should know that the old bed of the Oxus, which General Stebnitzki examined for a length of four hundred and forty miles, belongs to geology, and not to history. The entire absence of all traces of anterior civilisation, such as remains of buildings or canals, along the line of the General's exploration shows that the abandoned channel dates. from pre-historic Turkestan, whereas the present Oxus runs through comparatively modern alluvial formations of its own making. From time to time the river overflows its Khivan banks, pouring and filtering as far westward as Lake Sarykamish. Arrived at the 'Yellow Reeds' (ninety miles from the Khivan town Bend), the truant waters would have three hundred and forty miles to run before reaching Balkhan bay in the Caspian, and, says Professor Kiepert, the job of completely restoring their ancient bed, over such a length of desert isthmus, would overtask the financial resources of the richest State; so that "Slav credulity" must abandon this seductive dream in favour of the only practical method by which Russian commerce