1. CLIMATIC CHANGES IN PERSIA 217
forbids the supposition that we have to do with a sea-floor. The deposits have, therefore, come into existence in the same way as in kevir. The hills rise up out of masses of detritus, as out of their own ruins. He acknowledges that rivers may at times reach the lowest parts of the depressions, and there deposit layers of salt. This fact he considers sufficient to make all mention of cut-off sea bays and lakes superfluous. Nor does he need, like Blanford, to assume great changes of climate.
However, Blanford's theories have received strong support from the investigations of Bruckner and Huntington. And the results I have obtained during my last journey confirm their observations in every respect. When one of the objects I proposed to myself, to insert on the map the limits of the kevir deserts over as great a distance as possible, and when I therefore partly followed their edges, partly crossed right through them, I had hardly any opportunity of establishing the presence or absence of old lake terraces. The most recent terraces and shore lines are already covered with æolian transgressions, that is to say, flat gravel fans from the foot of the nearest hills. The older ones are situated as a rule at a great distance from the margin of the kevir.
Vaughan, however, gives the following interesting information : " I made a collection of various marine shells, including oyster - shells, between Chashma - Gauhir and Baba-Khalet, at an elevation of roo or 200 feet above, and within 2 or 3 miles of the kavir bed. I showed these to Mr. Staal, a German-Russian geologist, who said that they were of an extinct species, and that for a period of from 8000 to i o,000 years at least there had been no sea there."'
In the presence of such a proof we need not, like Vaughan, consider it singular that none of the old historians mentions an enclosed sea, and it is not necessary to seek further confirmation in the innumerable tales and legends about an ancient sea which survive among the people dwelling around. Such legends are repeated by Goldsmid and his associates, Schindler, Curzon, Huntington, etc. It
1 Geographical Journal, vol. vii. (1896) p. 166.
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