the tamarisks, which now appeared to be fresher and more vigorous than they were a twelvemonth earlier, and finally we crossed over the terrace-like hill from the top of which we had first seen the Kara-koschun a year before. Here the same changes had taken place as at Camp No. XX; that is to say, the nearest »finger» of the lake, pointing south-west, which in 1900 was barely visible in the north-east, had now reached the foot of the hill. Our old Camp No. XXI was still dry land, though surrounded by water, its lake having expanded very considerably. The maximum depth, which in 1 goo was 3.70 m., had now in all probability increased a good deal. A year previously the main body of the lake extended to S.85° E.; while a large bay, as we thought, ran north-north-east and disappeared in the distance. It now turned out that it was not a bay, but a broad sound, through which all the water was flowing that was going to form the new lakes to the north.
We pushed on past the lake, and past a couple of its offshoots, without stopping and pitched our tents beside a sort of bay running south-west. The little party of Lopliks, with one of my Cossacks, whom I had appointed to meet me here with fresh provisions, had 22 days earlier erected a hut on a peninsula in what they deemed a perfectly safe place; but the water had risen so seriously that the hut was almost entirely surrounded by it, and was then actually touching it. Camp CLXXIV was so near to Camp CLXVII, that a rifle-shot could be heard from the one to the other. Whilst we rode round, two Lopliks, who took a short cut of a day from the latter camp, had to cross the broad streams which were supplying the northerly lakes with water, and had indeed to traverse the greater part of the distance swimming.
Fortunately we found at this hut two canoes which had been brought from Kum-tschapghan, so that I was now in a position to examine more closely the adjacent parts of the Kara-koschun. Before going on to describe the trips I took on it, I will enumerate the names which the natives gave me as designating the adjacent parts of the lake. They are not indeed fully reliable, at all events those are not which apply to the most easterly lakes, the parts which the Lopliks have not visited for scores of years. That the names exist, and have been in actual use, admits of no doubt; but possibly they may indicate other basins than those which I intended in my inquiries. However, , one old man declared, that the lake with the huts and the canoe we found was called Terema-köli, or the Fish-skin Lake, and another to the east of it Tschakirni-aghsi. South of Camp No. CLXVII was the Kurban Kulluni-köli. The lake beside which we had made Camp No. XXI was the Jätiäräli; the name, meaning the Seven Men, is said to have been given to it because seven - fishermen once settled there to monopolise the fishing. Jodak-köl was a lake qùite close to us. Mökme-köl was a small lake, plentifully overgrown with ka-misch, to • the south-west of our camp ; while south of the same point was the large lake of Tschajnot-köl. Between this same camp and Camp No. CLXXV I was given the names of the following lakes — Tschöl-köl, Jagh-isma-köl, Kirtschin-köl, Sägislik-köl, Aschäk-kurmatschlik-köl, Jegrenlik-kir. Still farther to the south-west lie "the basins which I have already mentioned when describing one of my canoe-trips on the northern part of the Kara-koschun.
The new desert lakes, as may readily be conceived, had not yet received any names, for the simple reason that there was not a single Loplik, whether fisher-
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