Page:England & Russia in Central Asia,Vol-I.djvu/66

46 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-