It seemed to me that an examination of the abundant animal bones seen in the trenched mound in 1903 might prove of value in several respects and possibly throw some light on European relations. Consequently all that were found were collected, and each day's findings sacked and duly labeled as to stratigraphie position. About half a ton of these were forwarded to Dr. Duerst of Zürich, to whom, as Dr. Schmidt informed me, the German museums submitted subfossil animal remains for study. As a comparative anatomist, Dr. Duerst was especially interested in the domestic animals from the comparative side and from that of their origins. The results of his exhaustive study of the bones from Anau, to which he devoted his whole time during nearly three years, and his far-reaching conclusions are given in the second volume of this publication.
While Dr. Schmidt was conducting the archeological work, an independent physiographic investigation was carried on by R. W. Pumpelly and myself—a search for local geological records of changes in the attitude of nature toward man. This had long been to me a coordinate part of the Central Asiatic problem. The reader will see how important were the results obtained in this study of the operation of geological and climatic forces during the present epoch as recorded in mountain movements and in alternate aggradation and degradation of the delta-oasis.
Our workmen were the local Turkomans, a people speaking a Turkish dialect, very near to the Osmanli, but who had become racially much influenced by infusion of Persian blood through mothers captured in raids on to the Iranian plateau. These Turkomans, before they were with difficulty conquered by Russia, were the terror of Central Asia. Themselves Sunnite Mohammedans, they had (besides the feud between Iran and Turan, traditional from remote time) the fanatical hatred of the Shi-ite Persians. In swift raids they exterminated Persian villages, saving only women to sell as slaves in Bokhara and Khiva. Since their subjection they have been peaceable, and are esteemed by the Russians for their bravery and honesty, qualities which we, too, had every reason to admire in our workmen. We paid them from 25 to 4o cents a day for labor that was always well and persistently performed.
Our work at Anau was stopped by inroads of a vast army of grasshoppers, which not only filled our pits faster than they could be removed, but were spread through the irrigation ditches over the surface of the oasis in thick masses.
From Anau we moved to Merv, where we hoped to find sites of great antiquity and to make explorations preliminary to future excavation. The wasted walls and citadel of Ghiaur Kala (City of the Infidel) seemed the most promising, but here, while we reached in our pits only down to culture-
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