Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/522

 506 OXII MONIES. in a direction from SW. to NE., from the Aral to the " embouchure" of the Obi. The characteristic feature of this depression is an immense number of chains of small lakes, communicating with each other, arranged in a circular form, or like a necklace. These lakes are probably the traces of Strabo's channel. The first distinct statement of the&« of Aral, described as a vast and broad lake, situated to the E. of the river Ural or Jaik, occurs in Menander of Constan- nnple, surnanied the "Protector," who lived in the time of the emperor Maurice. (Menand. Hist. Legal. Barbarorum ad Romanos, pp. 300, 301, 619, 623, 628, ed. Bonn, 1829). But it is only with the series of Arab geographers, at the head of whom must be placed El-Istaehry, that any positive infor- mation upon the topography of these regions com- mences. (Humboldt, Asie Centrals, vol. ii. pp. 121-364.) [E.B.J.] O'XLI MOXTES (to 'aifia Ofn}, Ptol. vi. 12. §§ 1, 4), a chain of mountains between the rivers Oxus and Jasartes, in a direction from SVV. to NE., and which separated Scythia from Sogdiana They are identified with the metalliferous group of As- ferah and Ahtagh — the Botom, Botm, or Botam (".Mont Blanc") of Edrisi (ed. Jaubcrt, vol. ii. pp. 198—200). The Oxi Rupes of Strabo {"a^ov vfTpa p. 517), which be also calls the hill-fort of Arimazes (Q. Curt. vii. 11), has been identified by Droysen, as quoted by Thirlwall (Hist, of Greece, vol. vi. p. 300), with the pass of Kolugha or Derbend, in the Kara-tagh, between Kish and Hissar ; but as it is called the rock of the Oxus, it must be looked for on that river, and is probably Kiirghan-Tippa on the Amii. (Wilson, Ariana, p. 167; Eitter, Erdkunde, vol. vii. p. 734; Hum- boldt, Asie Centrale, vol. ii. pp. 18—20.) [E.B.J.] OXINES ('0|i;'7)s), a small river on the coast of Bithynia, according to Arrian (^Peripl. p. 14) be- tween Ueracleia and Phyllium, and according to Marcianus (p. 70) 90 stadia to the north-east of Cape Posidium. (Comp. Anonym. Peripl. p. 4, where, as in Arrian, its name is Oxinas.) It is probably the modern Tsharuk. [L. S ] OXINGIS. [AuKiNX,] OXTHRACAE ('O|0pa«ai, Appian, B. HUp. c. 58), a town of the Lusitani, and according to Appian the largest they had; but it is not mentioned by anv other author. [T. H. D.] OXUS (d'AIos, Polyb. x. 48 ; Str.ib. i. p. 73, xi. pp. 507, 509, 510, 513, 514, 516—518 ; Ptol. vi. 9. §§ 1, 2. 10. §§ I, 2. 1 1. §§ 1—4, 7. 12. §§ 1,4. 14. §§ 1, 2, 14. 18. § 1; Agathem. ii. 10; Arrian, Anab. iii. 28, 29, 30, iv. 15, viii. 10, 16; Plut. Alex. 57; Dionys. 747; Pomp. Mela, iii. 5. § 6 ; Plin. vi. 18 ; Q. Curt. vii. 4, 5, 10; Amm. Marc, xxsiii. 6. § 52), a river of Central Asia, on the course of which there ap- pears a considerable discrepancy between the state- ments of ancient and modern geographers. Besides afiirming that the Oxus flowed through Hyrcania to the Caspian or Hyrcanian sea, Strabo (is. p. 509) adds, upon the authority of Aristobulus, that it was one of the largest rivers of Asia, that it was navi- gable, and that by it much valuable merchandise was conveyed to the Hyrcanian sea, and thence to Albania, and by the river Cyrus to the Euxine. Pliny (vi. 1 9) also quotes M. Varro, who says that it was ascertained at the time when Pompeius was carrying on hostilities in the East against Mithridates, that a journey of seven days from the frontier of India brought the traveller to the Icarus, which flowed into the Oxus; the voyage continued along that OXUS. river into the Caspian, and across it to the Cyrus, from whence a land journey of no more than five days carried Indian merchandise to Phasis in Pontus. It would appear (Strab. /. c.) that Patrocles, the admiral of Seleucus and Antiochus, had navigated the Caspian, and that the results of his observations were in perfect accord with these statements. With such definite accounts mistake is almo.st impossible; yet the country between the Caspian and the O.'ius h.as been crossed in several directions, and not only has the Oxus been unseen, but its course has been ascertained to take a direction to the NW. instead of to the SW. ; and it flows not into the Caspian, but the sea of Aral. Sir A. Bumes (Travels in Bo- khara, vol. ii. p. 188) doubts whether the Oxus could indeed have had any other than its present course, for physical obstacles oppose its entrance into the Caspian S. of the bay of Balkan, and N. of that point its natural receptacle is the Aral ; and that this has been the case for nine centuries at least there is the evidence of Ibn Haukil (Istachry). (^Oriental Geography, p. 239, ed. Ousely, London, 1800.) Singularly enough, Pomponius Mela(?. c.) describes very concisely the course of the Oxus almost as it is known at present. " Jaxartes et Oxos per deserta Scythiae ex Sogdianorum regioni- bus in S}thicum sinum exeunt, ille suo fonte grandis, hie incursu aliorum grandior ; et aliquandiu ad occasum ab oriente currens. juxta Dahas primum inflectitur : mrsuque ad Sepitentrionem converso inter Amardos et Paesicas os aperit." The course of the Oxus or Djihonn, as it is termed in the Turkish and Persian works which treat upon its basin, or Amii Deryd, as the natives on its banks call it, whether we consider the Badak- chan branch or Kokcha to be its source, or that which rises in the Alpine lake of Sir-i-kol, on the snow- covered heights of the Tartaric Caucasus of Pamir, has a direction from SE. to NW. The volume of its waters takes the same course from 37° to 40° lat. with great regularity from Khoondooz to Chadris. About the parallel of 40° the Oxus turns from SSE. to NNW., and its waters, diminished by the numerous channels of irrigation which from the days of Herodotus (iii. 117) have been the only means of fertilising the barren plains of Khwarizm, reach tlie Aral at 43° 40'. Mannert (vol. iv.p. 452) and others have seen in the text of Pomponius Mela a convincing proof that in his time the Oxus had no longer communication with the Caspian. But it can hardly be supposed that the commerce of India by the Caspian and the Oxus had ceased in the little interval of time which sepa- rates Mela from Strabo and M. Varro. Besides, the statement of the Roman geographer remains singu- larly isolated. Ptolemy (/. c), less than a century after Mela, directs the Caspian again from E. to W. into the Caspian. The lower course of the river, far from following a direction from S.to N., is represented, in the ancient maps, which are traced after Ptolemy's positions, as flowing from ENE. — WSW. But a more convincing proof has been brought forward by M. Jaubert (Alem. svr VAncien Coiirs de VOxus, Journ. Asiatiqiie, Dec. 1833, p. 498), who opposes the authority of Hamdallah, a famous geographer of the 14th century, whom he calls the Persian Era- tosthenes, who asserted that while one branch of the Oxus had its debouche into the sea Khowaresm (Aral), there was a branch which pursued a W. course to the Caspian. It should be observed that Jenkin- son (Purchas, vol.iii. p.236; Hakluyt,vol.i. p. 368), who visited the Caspian in 1559, also says that