Page:EB1911 - Volume 27.djvu/187

Rh Included in the total were some 280,000 Turkomans, 60,000 Kirghiz, 12,000 Russians, 8000 Persians, 4250 Armenians, and some Tatars. The estimated population in 1906 was 397,100. The province is divided into five districts, the chief towns of which are Askhabad, the capital; Krasnovodsk; Fort Alexandrovskiy, in the district of Manghishlak, on the Caspian Sea; Merv and Tejefi. Until a recent date the chief occupations of the Turkomans were cattle-rearing and robbery. Even those who had settled abodes on the oases of the Atok, Tejen and Merv were in the habit of encamping during the spring in the steppes, the khanates of Afghan Turkestan from Balkh to Meshhed being periodically devastated by them. The aspect of the steppe has, however, greatly changed since the Russian advance and the fall (1881) of the Turkoman stronghold of Geok-tepe. Their principal oases are situated along the Atok or loess terrace, the chief settlements being Askhabad, Kyzyl-arvat and Geok-tepe. The oasis of Merv is inhabited by Akhal-tekkes (about 240,000), mostly poor. In January 1887 they submitted to Russia. The oasis of Tejefi has sprung up where the river Tejen (Heri-rud) terminates in the desert.

South-west Turcomania.4The region between the Heri-rud and the Murghab has the characteristics of a plateau, reaching about 2000 ft. above the sea, with hills 500 and 600 ft. high covered with sand, the spaces between bein filled with loess. The Borkhut Mountains which connect the I(0pet-dagh with the Selid-kuh in Afghanistan reach 3000 to 4000 ft., and are cleft by the Heri-rud. Thickets of poplar and willow accompany both the Murghab and the Heri-rud. Pistachio and mulberry trees grow in isolated clumps on the hills; but there are few places available for cultivation, and the Saryk Turkomans (some 60,000 in number) congregate in only two oases-Yol-otan or Yelatan, and Penjdeh. The Sarakhs oasis is occupied by the Salor Turkomans, hereditary enemies of the Tekke Turkomans; they number about 3000 tents at Old Sarakhs, and 1700 more on the Murghab, at Chardjui, at Maimene (or Meimane), and close to Herat.,

The Transcaspian Region is very rich in minerals. Rock-salt, petroleum, gypsum and sulphur' are extracted. Nearly 300,000 acres are irrigated by the natives, and attempts are being made by the government to increase the irrigated arm; it is considered that over 5,000,000 acres of land could be rendered suitable for agriculture. Several hundred thousand trees are planted every year, and a forest guard has been established to prevent useless destruction of the saksaul trees, which grow freely in the steppes. A model garden and a mulberry plantation have been established at Askhabad in connexion with the gardening school. The land in the oases, especially those of the Atrek River, is highly cultivated. Wheat and barley are grown, in addition to sorghum (a species of millet), maize, rice, millet and sesame for oil. Raw cotton is extensively grown in the Merv district. Gardening and fruit-growing are well developed, and attempts are being made to encourage the spread of Viticulture. Livestock breeding is the chief occupation of the nomad Turkomans and Kirghiz. Considerable fishing is carried on in the Caspian Sea, and seals are killed on the Manghishlak peninsula. The natives excel in domestic industries, as the making of carpets, travelling bags, felt goods and embroidered leather: The Russian population is mostly limited to the military and the towns. Wheat, flour, wool, raw cotton and dried fruit are exported; while tea, manufactured goods, timber, sugar, iron and paraffin oil are imported, as also rice and fruit from Bokhara, Turkestan and Persia. The Transcaspian railway, constructed across the province from Krasnovodsk to Merv, with a branch to Kushk, and from Merv to Bokhara and Russian Turkestan, has effected quite a revolution in the trade of Central Asia. The old caravan routes via Orenburg have lost their importance, and goods comin from India, Persia, Bokhara and even China are now carried Iiy rail. (For the history of the region see .)

See the researches of Andrusov, Bogdanovich, Konshin, Mushketov and Obmc hev in the Memoirs, the Bulletin (Izvestria) and the Annuals of the Russian Geographical Society (1890-1900); P. M. Lessar, L'Anc1lenne jonctian de l'Oxus avec la mer Caspienne (1889); Zarudnoi (zoology) in Bulletin de la société des naturalist es de Moscou (1889 seq.).

TRANSCAUCASIA, a general name given to the governments and provinces of Russian Caucasia, excluding the steppe provinces of Kuban and Terek and the steppe government of Stavropol. It thus includes the governments of Baku, Elisavetpol, Erivan, Kutais and Tiflis; the provinces of Batum, Daghestan and Kars; and the military districts of the Black Sea (Chernomorsk) and Zakataly. Its area is 95,402 sq. m., and the estimated population in 1906 was 6,114,600. (See and .)

 TRANSCENDENTALISM (Lat. trans, across, scandere, climb, whence transcendere, to pass a limit), in philosophy, any system which emphasizes the limited character of that which can be perceived by the senses and is based on the view that true knowledge is intuitive, or supernatural. The term is specially applied to Kant's philosophy and its successors which hold that knowledge of the a priori is possible. It is traceable as far back as the schoolmen of whom Duns Scotus describes as "transcendental" those conceptions which have a higher degree of universality than the Aristotelian categories. Thus ens (being) is more universal than God or the physical universe because it can be predicated of both. Kant distinguishes as "transcendent" the world of things-in-themselves as being without the limits of experience; while "transcendental" is his term for those elements which regulate human experience, though they are themselves beyond experience; such are the categories of space, time, causality.

In general use the term is applied rather promiscuously and frequently by way of criticism to an attitude of mind which is imaginative, aloof from mundane affairs and unmoved by practical considerations. The most famous example of the pseudo-philosophic use of the term is for a movement of thought which was prominent in the New England states from about 1830 to 1850. Its use originated in the Transcendental Club (1836) founded by Emerson, Frederic Henry Hedge (1805-1890), and others. This movement had several aspects: philosophical, theological, social, economic. Its main theme was regeneration, a revolt from the formalism of both Unitarian and Calvinist theology and a widening literary outlook. It took its rise to a large extent in the study of German (and to a less extent French) philosophy and spread widely among the cultured classes. In 1840 the club began to issue an official organ, The Dial, and the settlement of (q.v.) followed in 1841. These enterprises themselves did not receive general support even among the Transcendentalist leaders, and the real significance of the movement was the stimulus which it gave to philanthropy, to the Abolition movement, and to a new ideal of individual character. The chief names associated with it, besides those of Emerson and Hedge, are those of (q.v.),  (q.v.),  (q.v.),  (q.v.), and  (q.v.).

TRANSEPT (from Lat. trans, across, and septum, enclosure; synonymous terms in other languages are Fr. croisée, nef transversée; Ital. crociata; Ger. Querbau, Querschiff), in architecture, the term given to the large and lofty structure which lies at right angles to the nave and aisles of a church. The first example is that which existed in the old St Peter's at Rome, but as a rule it is not found in the early basilicas. At the present day the transept might be better defined as that portion of a cruciform church which extends from north to south across the main body of the building and usually separates the choir from the nave; but to this there are some exceptions, as in Westminster Abbey, where the choir, with its rood screen, occupies the first four bays of the nave; in Norwich two bays; in Gloucester one bay; and Winchester one bay. In some of the English cathedrals there is an eastern transept, as in Canterbury, Lincoln, Salisbury and Worcester; at Durham that which might be regarded as an eastern transept is the chapel of the Nine Altars, and the same is found in Fountains Abbey. Four of the English cathedrals have aisles on east and west sides, viz. Ely, Wells, Winchester and York, while at Chester there are aisles to the south transept only, and at Lincoln, Peterborough and Salisbury on the east side only. In some cases the transept extends to the outer walls of the aisles only, but there are many instances in which it is carried beyond, as at Lincoln (225 ft. long), Ely (180 ft.), Peterborough (180 ft.), Durham (175 ft.) and Norwich (172 ft.); in all these cases the transept is carried three bays beyond; in York (220 ft.), St Albans (170 ft.), Lichfield (145 ft.) and Canterbury, east transept (165 ft.), two bays beyond; and in Canterbury, western transept (130 ft.), Chichester (160 ft.) and Worcester (130 ft.), only one bay on each side, the dimension in all cases being taken within the north and south walls of the transept.