IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Overland to India : vol.2 |
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Citation Information
23o OVERLAND TO INDIA
CHAP.
the Kevir basin, which is filled with fine loam. This loam has at the edge of the Kevir a large admixture of sand.
Round about the Kevir we find innumerable erosion furrows converging to this centre. After heavy rain they may be filled with large rivers, as I had often opportunities
r
of observing during the rainy winter of 1905-1906. That 0
the drainage even now may be very abundant is shown by such erosion furrows as that which descends from the Dom
spring to the Kevir, and is 20 yards broad and 3o feet deep. 0
The fine silt carried by the rain torrents finds its way
sooner or later to the Kevir, but, as the surface of the Kevir 'il
is nevertheless practically horizontal, this must be due ~1
either to its constant sodden condition or to the fact that 0
the weathered material, the fine silt included, moves on as
a mantle over the Kevir floor. In consequence of the 0
unevenness of the detritus fans the shore of the Kevir is y
usually a festoon-like alternation of bays and points. Near /s
Turut there are some isolated reefs or pinnacles standing 0
up like islands from the surface. Kuh-i-gugird seems to n
be a small elevation for the most part surrounded by and imbedded in kevir material.
Even the very latest maps of Persia give many if
erroneous details of the Kevir. On the map in Stieler's Hand-Allas there are three salt swamps with dotted outlines, the existence of which is more than problematic. The small hilly ridge, crossed by both my routes, does not exist at all. On the map in Andrée's Hand-Allas two quite respectable mountain groups lie on either side of the road between Turut and Aruzun ; they have no existence, and it is hard to discover the authority for them. On the map in Johnston's Atlas a lake lies immediately to the north of Jandak, and thither in some mysterious way the Kal-mura has gone astray.
Many travellers refer to the basin form of the kevir
deserts, their temporary lakes and large salt deposits. 1
Blanford was the first to understand their origin. There are many akin to them in Tibet, Tsaidam, and Central Asia, and they present a peculiar and characteristic desert type. Walther declares that the following causes produce changes in a desert lake : (1) the quantity of precipitation ;
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