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0438 The Pulse of Asia : vol.1
The Pulse of Asia : vol.1 / Page 438 (Color Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000233
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The only alternative seemed to be the hypothesis of a change
of climate, which I then thought "contrary to the facts of
history." Now, however, I am inclined to believe that it
accords with the facts of history. The close agreement of the
fluctuations of Lake Gyoljuk in date and character with
those of the Caspian Sea, and the fact that a single hypothe-
sis fits the phenomena of both lakes, give good ground for
believing that Turkey has been subject to the same changes
of climate as has Central Asia.
The extent and possible significance of these changes
will be manifest from a brief résumé of the main conclu-
sions to which we have thus far been led. Including Gyol-
juk, our survey of western and central Asia has dealt with
six distinct basins. On the west lies Gyoljuk in Turkey;
then come the Caspian basin in Russia, and that of Seyis-
tan to the south in Persia; while far to the east we have
Lop and Turfan in the heart of Asia forming part of
China, and Kashmir south of the Himalayas in India. If
we omit the Volga and the European portions of the Cas-
pian drainage area, the limits of our six basins lie over
sixteen hundred miles apart from north to south, and over
three thousand from east to west. All this vast area seems
to have been subject to the same great waves of climatic
change.
In the ancient days when the Oxus River entered the
Scythian gulf of the expanded Caspian Sea, and Lake Gyol-
juk discharged permanently to the Tigris, the lake of Sey-
istan had not yet been converted into dry land by the giants;
Kashmir was so cold and snowy that agriculture was impos-
sible; its people were nomads, who were obliged to drive