of the dune beside it. Along this line therefore the prevailing easterly wind is able to sweep along comparatively unchecked. The consequence is, the dunes on the island travel towards the west-south-west, and the backwash of the waves suck the sand into the lake, making it shallow. The island lies about the middle of the lake, rather nearer the eastern shore, and forms the continuation of a very sharply outlined peninsula, which divides the southern part of the lake into two rounded bays. We have a similar conformation in the Gölme-käti: it is a cleavage, pointing to two depressions with a truncated dune-length lying in between them, in other words, a dune-length that dies away wedge-shaped towards the north. South-south-west of the larger bay, the one on the east, there is a bajir containing a shallow salt-water lake, with a bottom of almost perfectly black ooze. The sandy isthmus which separates the lake from this bajir is very low, and is covered with kamisch; and even on its face there lie two or three small sheets of water resembling detached portions of the lake or of its bajir. Beyond this last again, and in the same south-southwest direction, it is evident, from the low sand, as well as from the steep westward flanks of the dunes, that there must be several other bajirs lying in a string. From a high point of view to the south of this lake we saw in the N. 6o° E. a large bajir full of water, belonging to the lake of Bajir-köl, or possibly forming a part of it. This is said to be long and narrow, and to be divided into four basins by three boltos or »narrow sounds». From a cape called Terimi-modschughu, which projects from the west side of the Ullugh-köl, I climbed on foot to the summit of the dune-accumulation, whence I had a magnificent view of the large and don-gated bajir which belongs to the lake of Tajiri-kakinasi, forming its south-southwest continuation. In this depression there is a good deal of salt water, its situation indicating the usual conformation of the underlying contours; that is to say, along its west side there is a broad band of black, moist ooze (schor, ftatik), from which the water had recently receded, whereas the strip along the eastern shore is either extremely narrow or altogether wanting. In its place we have between the waterline and the foot of the dunes a belt of reeds and bushes 5o m. broad. About midway along the west side there is a flat table-topped elevation, 2 m. high, and formed of clay. Similar phenomena, to which the natives give the name of gumbes, or the »tower», occur sometimes a long way into the desert between Jangi-köl and Tat-ran. They belong to the substratum, having hitherto successfully defied wind, corrasion, and disintegration, but it is evident that their days are nevertheless numbered. The level belt of sand-free soil on the left side of the Tajiri-kakmasi is exceptionally broad; and I have already mentioned the broad band of barren ooze. On the inner or western side of this last there exists a still broader belt of reeds, to the edge of which the high water appears to rise. The culminating point of the western dune-accumulation lies to the S. 8o° W.; and in the S. 52° W., on the other side of a low saddle in the sand, we perceived another bajir; but beyond that we were unable to see owing to the air being filled with dust. Although the first bajir extends on the whole from N. 15° E. to S. 15° W., its southern part is nevertheless irregular in outline, in that its greater basin inclines away to the south-east and east, and is said to form a continuation of the western bay of the Ullugh-köl, from which it is however separated by a low sandy isthmus. The narrowest part of this bajir, again, also as-
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