Tarim Basin

“ In the case of a large hollow in a very dry climate the rate of evaporation may be sufficient to prevent the water from ever rising to the lip, so that there is no outflow to the sea, and a basin of internal drainage is the result. This is the case, for instance, in the Caspian sea, the Aral and Balkhash lakes, the Tarim basin, the Sahara, inner Australia, the great basin of the United States and the Titicaca basin. These basins of internal drainage are calculated to amount to 22% of the land surface. ”

“ It has made major technological breakthroughs in the field of resources and environment technology, discovering the petroleum and natural gas reserves in the Tarim Basin. The technologies used in the Tarim Desert Highway and Shelter Forest Project meet the highest international advanced standards. ”

“ Tarim, in watery metaphor, is not so much a basin as a pool in a tidal river flowing alternately to and from the sea. We can imagine that in such a pool creatures of very different provenance might be found together. So currents both from east to west and from west to east passed through the Tarim, leaving behind whatever could live there: Chinese administration and [Pg 189] civilization from the east: Iranians from the west, bearing with them in the stream fragments that had drifted from Asia Minor and Byzantium, while still other currents brought Hindus and Tibetans from the south. ”

“ The name Tarim, as we were told, is derived from "tara," i. e. field, owing to the circumstance of the water of this river in its upper course being mostly utilized to irrigate the fields.
Fifty versts below the mouth of the Ugen-daria a large arm, the Kiok-ala-daria (about 150 feet wide) separates from the Tarim and flows in an independent channel for about 130 versts before reuniting with the parent river. Into this arm flows the Koncheh-daria from the north. ”

“ The 1890s saw further interest in White Sands by academics, as R.T. Hill wrote in the Geological Society of America Bulletin (1891) about the "Hueco-Organ Basin." In that same year R.S. Tarr published in the American Naturalist "A recent lava flow in New Mexico." Tarr took Harrington's "lost river" thesis a step further, deducing from the presence of gypsum deposits, salt marshes, and "ancient beaches" that the "well-defined valleys . . . extend much farther than the present streams succeed in going." ”

“ With the exception of the Kiok-ala-daria the Tarim has no important subsidiary channels in its lower course, and is mostly contained in one channel. Along its banks to the right and left of its course are scattered marshes and lakes. These are for the most part artificially formed by the natives for purposes of fishing and pasturage—reeds being the only food for cattle in this wretched country. The river itself assists in the irrigation of its own valley. ”

“ Of these agencies the river Tarim makes by comparison much the smallest contribution of disintegrated material to the volume of sand. The area covered by sands in the desert of Takla Makan proper is estimated at nearly 116,000 sq. m., and the area covered by them in the desert of Cherchen at nearly 143,000 sq. m.
Vegetation and animal life are extremely scarce. ”

“ The formation is columnar, rising from a morass adjoining Beaver Lake, which is a mile long. The divide is thus crossed between the Gardiner and Gibbon Rivers, the latter flowing into the Madison, and here, twenty-five miles from the Mammoth Hot Springs, is the Norris Geyser Basin. In approaching, seen over the low trees, the place looks much like the manufacturing quarter of a city, steam jets rising out of many orifices, and a hissing being heard as of sundry engine exhausts. The basin covers about one hundred and fifty acres, and is depressed below the general level. ”

“ The hills rise abruptly; those we examined are of sandstone formation. The basin is very shoal, but there is a narrow channel in the centre, with from five to nine fathoms water. The shore, opposite the Bastion Hills, is low, and the gulf trends gradually round to the South-West for five miles, when it is contracted into a narrow communication, called The Gut, leading to an interior shoal basin, strewed with low marshy islands, which the tide covers. ”

“ The diversity of scenery in the Great Basin is increased by mountains of volcanic origin, including several modern craters, some of which hold lakes, and by lava-flows of recent date, and by great alluvial fans or detritus cones which stream out into the valleys from the mouths of gorges in the bordering mountains.
The Great Basin proper, with its rugged topography and arid climate, is not an agricultural region. Small portions of it, however, when water can be had for irrigation, have been transformed into fruitful farms and gardens which yield bountiful returns. ”

“ The imminent danger that threatened the Basin was not the danger from the ever-rising sea. Long before the waters could fill the old sea-bed, that mighty cataract, moving ever upstream, would pass the intake; and with the floor of the river lowered thus some fifty feet it would be impossible to take the water out for irrigation. The lands reclaimed by the pioneers would go back to desert years before they would be buried once more under the surface of the sea. ”

“ The entire stream, instead of pushing slowly across the delta, weltering in its own silt to the Gulf, poured into the bottom of the basin nearly four hundred feet below the top of this silt-made dam. In a single night it cut an eighty-foot channel in the unyielding soil, and what had once been the northern end of the California Gulf was turned into an inland sea, filled with the turbid waters of the Colorado, instead of the sparkling waters of the ocean. Nothing but an almost superhuman fight finally rescued the land from the grip of the water. ”

“ VESTY OF THE BASINS
I THE MEETIN'
Now is it to be rain or a storm of wind at the Basin?
I love that foam out on the sea; those boulders, black and wet along the shore, they are a rest to me; the clouds chase one another; in this dim north country the wind is cool and strong, though it is now midsummer; at sunset you shall see such color!
From a little, low, storm-beaten building comes the sound of a fog-horn. That is the gift of Melchias Tibbitts, deceased, to the Basin school-house. ”

“ Without these mountains, whose gorges are fed during the spring, and even in the summer, by melted snow, there would be no water. The levels of the valleys are still unknown; it is yet a question how far they are irregular in elevation, whether they have formed detached lakes, or whether they slope uniformly and by steps toward the Great Salt Lake and the other reservoirs scattered at intervals over the country.
The water-shed of the Basin is toward the north, south, east, and west: the affluents of the Columbia and the Colorado rivers carry off the greatest amount of drainage. ”

“ The impounding of these waters, along with their regulated and systematic release to those with contracts, has promoted the spectacular development of the Lower Basin. Today, the United States operates a whole network of useful projects up and down the river, including the Hoover Dam, Davis Dam, Parker Dam, Headgate Rock Dam, Palo Verde Dam, Imperial Dam, Laguna Dam, Morelos Dam, and the All-American Canal System, and many lesser works. ”

“ As each shallow basin dries out, and after the frigid salt sediment, or crust, has been collected, it is scrupulously cleaned with a hand-whisk and refilled with a skin-bucket or two of brine. The basin is then left undisturbed, beneath blue sky and blazing sun, for the day or two required for the water to completely evaporate.
And thus the people of Tigguida labour constantly [126] in these workings, which provide their sole means of livelihood. Whether puddling clay, carrying water, sweeping out basins, or collecting the salt crust, they are ever busy at one ploy or another ”

“ The little moisture that remains falls upon the highlands of the Great Basin, and so relieves its surface from utter barrenness. The adjacent slopes of the Sierra Nevada and Wasatch ranges furnish numerous perennial streams which feed the lakes about the borders of the Basin, such as Great Salt Lake, Pyramid, Walker, Mono, Honey, and Owens lakes. The wet weather streams, flowing down the desert mountains for a short time each year, frequently form broad, shallow lakes which disappear with the coming of the summer sun. ”

“ The height of Lake Lob is 2200 feet, and therefore the fall of the Tarim, notwithstanding its rapid stream averaging three feet per second, [13] is only slight.
From Akhtarma our road lay down the Tarim, now approaching its bank, now retreating to some distance from it. There is no valley in our sense of the word; neither the configuration nor quality of the soil changes even on the very bank of the river. The same loamy plain, the same drift-sand as in the desert, continue to within a hundred paces of the water. ”

“ It was the river flowing thus on higher ground that made irrigation and reclamation of the desert possible. It was this also that made possible the disaster that was now upon the hardy pioneers, who had staked everything in their effort to realize the vast potential wealth of the ancient sea-bed. The grade from the river at the intake to the lowest point in the bottom of the Basin is much steeper than the established fall of the river from the intake to the gulf. ”

“ To the west of the Rocky Mountain belt in the United States there exists a region embracing about 210,000 square miles, which sends no stream to the ocean. This vast and in large part desert tract is known as the Great Basin. The climate is characterized by its aridity. The annual precipitation is small and evaporation active. All the water 137 reaching the land is returned to the air by evaporation, either directly or from the streams and lakes. ”

“ At its north-eastern extremity, and probably connected with it, lies a long narrow basin which the natives call Lake Baringo. On the west it receives the tributary waters of the Kitangulé, and from the north throws off the various streams which unite in one channel to form the famous Nile.
North-west from the N’yanza lies the little Lúta N’zigé, or Albert Lake, discovered by Sir Samuel Baker in 1864; a long, narrow, and shallow basin, surrounded by mountains 7000 feet high, about 230 miles in length, and 2488 feet above the sea-level, which apparently serves as the great reservoir of the Nile. ”

“ Land slips are very common, which afford a considerable amount of matter for the torrents to carry seawards. The Tawaran is subject to very sudden inundations, the waters occasionally reaching the houses at the village of Buñgol, though fifty feet above the stream. There is no foundation for Dalrymple’s [368] story, which has been often repeated, of the Tawaran rising in the lake; it evidently springs from the main spur of Kina Balu.
The Abai is a salt-water creek, but preserving more the appearance of a river; much of both banks are mangrove until we approach the houses. ”

“ In a general way, we may affirm that the Lake of Tiberias is not a deep lake, and that the depth of the water scarcely exceeds 40 to 45 metres, according to the season, the monthly variations being considerable enough, in consequence of the very active evaporation in this over-heated basin. The greatest depths are found in the axis of the Jordan and almost towards the meridian of the lake; the eastern side is steeper, the land being less extended there than on the other shore, and one reaches quickly enough depths of 25 to 30 metres. ”

“ The crossing of the Great Basin was dreaded by the early emigrants on their way to the Pacific coast. In many cases the locations of the few springs and water-courses were unknown, and the journey over the vast barren stretches was fraught with danger.
Stand upon a mountain in the desert some clear day in summer and you will see range after range, with intervening sandy wastes, stretching away to the horizon. The air below is tremulous with heat, and every living thing that can move has sought the shade of some rock or cliff. ”

“ This is an area of interior drainage, made up of many minor basins, of which the chief is that of the Great Salt Lake in Utah. See Great Basin.
The Columbia and Snake River Plateaus. Large areas drained by these streams in Idaho, Oregon, and Washington are of volcanic origin, and along the Snake River in Idaho and Oregon the lavas form plateaus about 4000 feet in altitude. They are a natural desert, since the region is arid, but are capable of great development under the process of irrigation. ”

“ After those photographs and that young girl he dressed in all the splendor he had brought with him and hid no longer from tourists. Through Kingman Pass, by Obsidian Cliff, at Norris Basin, through the Gibbon Meadows and up the Fire Hole River, wherever we passed camping parties or stages, the screams and cameras now made him sit straighter. He rode imperturbable by the steam and the pools and strange formations which increased as we drew nearer to the Upper Geyser Basin.
Through this belt the earth grew unearthly. ”

“ The rainfall in the Eastern Desert is often very local. A series of galts full one year may be dry the next, while those of another area may show a reverse state of things. The drainage system most favourable to galts is one formed by the union of long narrow steep-sided gullies into a single gorge. The presence of basins is conditioned by the steepness of the drainage and the hardness of the rocky floor; if the rocks are soft or much crushed, galts are very unlikely to occur. Again, if the basin is formed of permeable though hard rock, there will be rapid loss by infiltration. ”