On 29th August I measured the river at the narrow passage between the two basins. Its bottom consisted in part of soft mud, which refused to bear, in part of hard gravel, this last chiefly under the left bank. At 1 p.m. the water had a temperature of 9.°6. The breadth was 39.8 m.; the mean depth, 0.787 m.; the mean velocity, 0.986 m.; and the volume, 30.9 cub.m. in the second. Thus this river too is of unusual dimensions, though it was evidently at that time swollen in consequence of the heavy fall of hail and snow which took place on the day preceding. It was by no means easy to ford; at the point where I measured it the depth amounted to 1.69 n1., and accordingly it was there unfordable; but we managed to get across a little higher up between the sand-banks.
In the lower basin the water was quite fresh, so that the salt lake does not penetrate up as far as that. Here we percived vast numbers of wild-duck and wild-geese. The basin is surrounded by two peninsulas of peculiar shape: the northern one forms a long narrow cape projecting eastwards, and north of it lies the bay which I have mentioned before. North of the bay is a more blunted peninsula, also pointing east and rising into hills. This is the peninsula over the root of which we crossed, and which parted us from the salt lake. In the lower basin, which approaches 2 m. in depth, the current almost entirely ceases, but it becomes distinctly perceptible again in the narrow passage that conveys the river-water to the sound between the two lakes. After fording the last-named, which generally is shallow and contains some small islands, we ascended, on the opposite mainland, a small height, from which we obtained a general view of this highly intricate locality, a locality in which water is more abundant than land, so that it would be impossible to explore it without a boat. When on the top of the height in question we were surrounded on three sides by water, some of the sheets being really of considerable extent.
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