lake. By noon the work was finished. So the country is called ` Nim-ruz,' or ` Half-day.' When the work was done, the `Dhus' went to the springs in the mountains and covered them, so that water no longer came out. Since that time there has been some water, but not so much as before."
Evidence that the lake once stood higher than now is found in two old strands fifteen and twenty-five feet above the present level. That the lake was once smaller than now is proved by a legend that the island of Kuh-i-Khoja was formerly part of the main land, and by the fact that the ruins of Sabari are described by the natives as lying in water ten or fifteen feet deep.
As to the later history of the lake, the owner of the book told me that when his ancestors came to Seyistan, about 900 A. D. according to the record, the region near the lake, where most of the villages now are, was again under water. The population was densely gathered around Zahidan and other more elevated places, where now the main ruins are found. It is not necessary here to enter into the details of evidence which I have set forth in "Explorations in Turkestan." Many, perhaps most, of the facts can of course be explained individually upon other theories than that of climatic change. No other theory explains all the facts. The most significant feature of the history of Seyistan is this : A comparison of physiographic, archæological, historical, and legendary data shows that all these lines of evidence agree in proving that the water supply of Seyistan has fluctuated during historic times. The fluctuations agree in time and character with the climatic pulsations of Chinese Turkestan.
Before passing to the Caspian Sea, we shall do well to con-
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