Page:England & Russia in Central Asia,Vol-I.djvu/69

Rh .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 Grreat'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 Greneral 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 Grenerars 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 over- flows 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 4