Caspian Sea

“ There is a railway from Baku to Moscow, and through sleeping cars. The track hugs the shore of the Caspian Sea for more than a hundred miles, passing first through a flat, desolate desert, broken by many rocks of slate and mounds of sun-burned clay. But after several streams are crossed, mountains appear in the distance and the soil, as well as the climate, improves. The dryness of the desert is moistened by damp breezes that blow down from the Caucasus and bring life to the earth. ”

“ The water of the Black Sea appears to be less clear and less saline than that of the ocean. There are no islands in it, and its tempests are more violent and more dangerous than in the ocean, because the whole body of its waters being contained in a bason, which has but a small outlet, when they are agitated, they have a kind of whirling motion which strikes the vessels on every side with an insupportable violence.
Next to the Black Sea the greatest lake in the universe is the Caspian Sea, whose extent in length from north to south is about 300 leagues, and scarcely more than fifty broad. ”

“ In that great inland basin of Asia which holds the Caspian Sea, and embraces an area of one million and a half of geo graphical square miles, we see the water-surface so exquisitely adjusted that it is just sufficient, and no more, to return to the atmosphere as vapor exactly as much moisture as the atmosphere lends in rain to the rivers of that basin. ”

“ They dwell beyond the Araxes (Jaxartes: Herodotus confuses this river with the Aras) , towards the morning and sunrise. The Caspian Sea is a sea by itself, fifteen days' journey in length and eight in breadth; on the west side of the sea is the Caucasus, but towards the east it is bounded by a plain of unlimited extent. A considerable part of this plain was occupied by the Massagetæ. They wear a dress like that of the Scythians, and resemble them in their mode of life; they fight on horse and on foot, use the bow and the lance, and also carry battle-axes. ”

“ And the last, and also the best, recollection of things seen before the night of which I speak was the recollection of an occasion when, one late autumn, I had been crossing the Caspian Sea on an old two-masted schooner laden with dried apricots, plums, and peaches. Sailing on her also she had had some hundred fishermen from the Bozhi Factory, men who, originally forest peasants of the Upper Volga, had been well-built, bearded, healthy, goodhumoured, animal-spirited young fellows, youngsters tanned with the wind, and salted with the sea water ”

“ Many hundreds of miles away, to the southward of the Caspian Sea, lies a country still untraversed by highroad or railway line. Here rise mountains clothed in the spring with a gay mantle of crocuses and wild tulips, but on whose scorched sides the burning summer sun leaves nothing but a low growth of thorns ”

“ The Caspian Sea has a level eighty feet below that of the Black Sea, and it is therefore probable that here was a large inland sea of which the Caspian and Aral Seas are the remains. These steppes are unfit for farming. Here dwell the Kalmucks and Kirghizes, descendants of the Tartars whose yoke once pressed heavily upon Russia. ”

“ The depression westward of the Caspian and Aral basins, and the original connexion of these seas, have also come under the close investigation of Russian scientists, with the result that the theory of an ancient connexion between the Oxus and the Caspian has been displaced by the more recent hypothesis of an extension of the Caspian Sea eastwards into Trans-Caspian territory within the post-Pleiocene age. The discovery of shells (now living in the Caspian) at a distance of about 100 m. inland, at an altitude of 140 to 280 ft. ”

“ MR. WILTON. "The Caspian extends about 700 miles in length, and 200 in breadth. The northern shores of this sea are low and swampy, often overgrown with reeds; but in many other parts the coasts are precipitous, with such deep water that a line of 450 fathoms will not reach the bottom. The best haven in the Caspian is that of Baku; that of Derbent is rocky, and that of Sensili not commodious, though one of the chief ports of trade."
DORA. "The Whang-hai, or Yellow Sea, on the coast of China, contains several islands,—Tebu-sou, Lowang, Tsougming, Vun-taichan, Fouma, and Stanton's Island. ”

“ At its feet, where its train sweeps the floor of the river valley in long and regular folds—far away in the east, towards the mists of the Caspian—the sandy ground breaks into a troubled surface, like angry waves set solid under a spell, and from range to range stretch a chain of low white hummocks, like islands across a sea. ”

“ Caspari, Karl Paul, German theologian, born at Dessau; professor at Christiania (1814-1892) .
Caspian Sea, an inland sea, partly in Europe and partly in Asia, the largest in the world, being 600 m. from N. to S. and from 270 to 130 m. in breadth, with the Caucasus Mts. on the W. and the Elburz on the S., is the fragment of a larger sea which extended to the Arctic Ocean; shallow in the N., deep in the S.; the waters, which are not so salt as the ocean, abound in fish, especially salmon and sturgeon. ”

“ To the west we discover the Caspian Sea like a range of blue clouds; the mountains of Persia are also distinguishable: but the greatest interest attaches to the mountain plain to our south, whose limit the eye cannot discern, on which the scattered groups of tents in many places have the appearance of mole-hills. Almost the whole of Etrek, with the river flowing through it, lies before us, and the places where the river spreads over both banks produce upon the eye the effect of lakes. ”

“ The great inland sea of Russia, the Caspian, lacks importance chiefly because of the fact that it is an inland sea. It forms a good means of communication from the Transcaucasian provinces to Central Asia, and also between Central Asia and Persia; but although attempts have been made to unite it with the Black Sea, the fact that it lies seventy feet below sea-level prevents any real good from being done. It is, however, of vast importance as a fishing center, and supplies almost the whole of Russia with fish. ”

“ This was the route taken by Captain Mouravief when he was sent by Yermolof to the Khan of Khiva, to propose to him an alliance with Russia. It would certainly be hard to conceive any conditions more unfavourable for an expedition towards the interior than are presented by this part of the coast. On the one side is the Caspian Sea, the navigation of which is at all times difficult, and in winter impossible; on the other side more than a month's march through the desert; and then on the coast itself there is a total impossibility of cantoning a reserved force. ”

“ The nomades, or wandering tribes, who live on the left side of the coast on entering the Caspian Sea, are called by the moderns Dahæ, and surnamed Parni.976 Then there intervenes a desert tract, which is followed by Hyrcania; here the Caspian spreads like a deep sea till it approaches the Median and Armenian mountains. ”

“ The Caspian Sea, lake Aral, and the Dead Sea, are of the last kind; they receive the waters of many rivers, and contain them. In Asia Minor there is a small lake of the like kind, and one much larger in Persia, on which the town of Marago stands; its figure is oval, and it is about ten or twelve leagues long, by six or seven broad; it receives the river Tauris, which is not very considerable. There is also a similar small lake in Greece, about 12 or 15 leagues from Lepanto, which are the only lakes of that kind known in Asia. In Europe there is not one which is considerable ”

“ From the shores of the Caspian to the Indian Ocean, from the Oxus to the Persian Gulf, they rallied in vast numbers around the Royal standard on the plain below the snow-capped peak of Demavend, on the south of the Caspian Sea.
Force under No’man opposes them. ”

“ It is one of the most remarkable views I ever saw, and the novelty and grandeur of it appeals the more forcibly to one's imagination, no doubt, because of its striking contrast to what the eyes have from long usage become accustomed to. From dreary, barren dasht, and stony wastes, to densely wooded mountains, jungle-covered plains, tall, luxurious tiger-grass, and beyond all this the shimmering background of the sea is a big change to find but little more than a day's march apart. We are both captivated by the change, and agree that the Caspian slope is the only part of Persia fit to look at. ”

“ This time our steamer is loaded with barrels of beer.
The wind raises great waves, which sweep our deck. We shall have a good tossing about on the treacherous Caspian Sea, no doubt.
May 23rd.—I have slept very badly the whole night, because of the intense heat and the horrid rolling of the ship; every hour I heard the change of watch ringing. At last I saw the morning twilight entering by the porthole. A brown-coloured lamb, brought by our sailors from Persia, squeezed himself through the half-open door of my cabin ”

“ As there was nothing to do during the fishing, in which Phil Evans intended to take part, Uncle Prudent, raging furiously as usual, retired to his cabin.
The Caspian Sea is a volcanic depression. Into it flow the waters of the Volga, the Ural, the Kour, the Kouma, the Jemba, and others. Without the evaporation which relieves it of its overflow, this basin, with an area of 17,000 square miles, and a depth of from sixty to four hundred feet, would flood the low marshy ground to its north and east. ”

“ PATROCLES (c. 312–261 B.C.) , a Macedonian general and writer on geographical subjects, who lived during the reigns of Seleucus I. and Antiochus I. When in command of the fleet of Seleucus (285) he undertook a voyage of exploration on the Caspian Sea to discover possible trade routes, especially for communication with the peoples of northern India. He came to the conclusion that the Caspian was a gulf or inlet, and that it was possible to enter it by sea from the Indian Ocean. ”

“ If therefore Water as warm as the Air in Summer, exhales the thickness of a 60th part of an Inch in two hours from its whole Surface, in 12 hours it will exhale the 1⁄10 of an Inch; which Quantity will be found abundantly sufficient to serve for all the Rains, Springs, and Dews; and account for the Caspian Sea, being always at a stand, neither wasting nor overflowing; as likewise for the Current said to set always in at the Streights of Gibralter, tho' those Mediterranean Seas receive so many and so considerable Rivers. ”

“ The author of the History of Tophet pretends that the Caspian Sea issues by subterraneous canals cut by Alexander into the Phasus, but this is an evident blunder, as I can most positively assert, because when I saw the Phasus on my journey to the siege of Assov, I found its water clear and fresh, while that of the Caspian Sea is so salt and bitter, that it burns a man’s skin if used for purification. This is a case for applying the Persian proverb ”

“ We must not narrow the influence of the sea in mythology within the compass of man’s mere experience of it. Few among the Aryans lived by the Caspian shore; but the Sea of Death appears in one form or another in the religious belief of all the Aryan people. The tradition of the sea, its real wonders, and greater fancied terrors, must have passed from one to another, from the few who lived within sight and sound of the waters to others quite beyond its horizon, to whom it was not visible even as a faint silvery line. ”

“ It is pretty certain that White Sea is not a name invented by the author, but that he supplies us with the literal translation of the Georgian words—Tetrysea and Sywa, which have a similar signification, and are even now employed to designate the Caspian Sea. Hammer is mistaken in saying that Schiltberger called the eastern shore of the Caspian by the name of Scherky, as the word appears in Penzel, and which is simply a corruption of “Scheckhy”, now known as Sheky, on the left bank of the river Kour, between Georgia, the districts of Gandja, Shirwan and Daghestan. ”

“ In a short time the sails were hoisted, and they put out once more on the broad bosom of the Caspian Sea, and came at last to the island of Kuminsk, where they sought out the Cossack chieftains and bowed down before them. ”

“ Along the Caspian the steppe and desert sink gradually to the water-level, and the margins of the sea are so shallow that, except where extensive dredging works have been carried out, and long jetties constructed, ships have to discharge their cargoes into barges two or three miles from the shore. ”

“ The country surrounding the Caspian Sea has produced fighting people from the very beginning. They were a nomad race in olden days, and filled others with terror. They were the Gog and Magog of the ancient days, and Darius of Persia had to build a wall between the Caucasian Mountains as a protection against their incursions. Later on, they appeared under the name of Scythians. Even India did not remain safe from their inroads at that time. ”

“ The fine season barely lasts four months in Russia. The roads are impassable for pedestrians in spring and autumn, and during the winter the cold is too severe, the days too short, the snow-storms often too prolonged to allow of putting regiments on the march, not to say sending them to the Caucasus across the uncultivated and desert plains that stretch between the Sea of Azof and the Caspian. The route by sea is equally impracticable. No use can be made of the Caspian on account of the arid and unproductive steppes that belt it on the Russian side. ”

“ The Caspian is a sea by itself, having no connection with any other. The sea frequented by the Greeks, that beyond the Pillars of Hercules, which is called the Atlantic, and also the Erythraean, are all one and the same sea. ”