Abstract
ON March 25, the Russian Geographical Society held an extraordinary meeting to listen to a communication by G. E. Grum-Grzimailo about his expedition to Central Asia. The expedition consisted of M. Grum-Grzimailo, his brother, a collector, an interpreter, six Cossacks, and two men. The luggage was transported on some fifty horses and donkeys. After having crossed the Russian frontier on June 8, 1889, they soon reached Kulja, and thence went north-east, towards the spurs of the Boro-Khoro Mountains. By the way they visited Central Djungaria, in order to obtain specimens of the wild horse discovered by Przevalsky, and described as Equus przevalski by the late Polyakoff from one single specimen brought in by the great traveller. Four specimens more were obtained. Returning from Djungaria, the expedition proceeded, in September, to the Eastern Tian-Shan, and completed the exploration of its remotest eastern parts. The well-known oasis of Turfan proved to be a desert which has been recovered for industry only by the hardest imaginable labour. It has no water, notwithstanding the proximity of the snow-mountains of Bogdo; and its inhabitants have dug out a whole system of underground canals and wells (some of which are 300 feet deep) to irrigate the desert. The canals collect the water underground, and then bring it to the surface in the lower grounds. The whole work is so colossal that the members of the expedition compare it with the colossal works of Egypt. As to the absolute height of the oasis, M. Grum-Grzimailo pointed out that parts of it appear to be below-the level of the sea. Of course, this conclusion of the Russian traveller, being based upon barometrical measurements only, cannot yet be taken as quite certain; but it shows that the oasis of Turfan is extremely low, and that it in no case rises more than from 200 to 300 feet. It thus must represent the bottom of a great lake, which occupied on the border of the Central Asian plateau the same position as Lake Baikal occupies now; and this quite unexpected fact is one of great importance for the physical geography and geology of the whole region.
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M. Grzimailo's Expedition. Nature 43, 571 (1891). https://doi.org/10.1038/043571a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/043571a0