Arizona republican., 1903-02-23
Hedin's Discoveries in Central Asia.

| that region. He told the Royal Geo. l graphical society about it the other day in London, ard thus raised some
 puZzling questions about the changes
 which drove away the people who once | fiourishcd there. Some of the same problems are presented which confront
 men of science when they attempt to | account for the disappearance of the
 civilized race which in q remote age
 inha bited the Salt River valley.
 Off to the eastward of the Russian possessions, which have lately been
 disturbed by earthquakes. lies dis i trict known as eastern Turl1estan. In this the maps show a wide area GesiG- mated as the Tanir basin. This is q sandy desert. with small oases diStrib uted about through it, the latter being fcrtilized either by small streams from
 name has been attached to the whole depression. The general course oi the Tanir is northeastward, and it termi- mates in the shallow remains of a lake, Lob-nob, whose waters are said to be fresh at one end and salt at the other.
 It was the immediate vicinity of Lob mob to which Dr. Hedin referred, and he found evidences of other lakes
 which had formerly existed, but are
 now utterly dry.
 He associated with that discovery two others. Forests that have long been dead were found in the Lob-nob
 region. There were also traces of road, ruined villages, coins, manu- scripts and other relics of fairly civil ized race, which has since completely disappeared. From clews which are not indicated in "Natures' brief sum- mary of his talk, Dr. Hedin concludes that the occupation of the region term | mated about 1,500 or 1900 years ago. Just when it began it was, of course, a hard thing to say. The culture Of the inhabitants was rot so advanced, perhaps, as that of Greece and Rome,
 nor so ancient as Chaldea and Egypt but it constituted a hitherto unknown chapter in human history.
 One phase of the subject which has | impressed T. G. Bonney, q prominent
 British gcologist, is the evidence af- l forded that some permanent change of
 climate has been effected in the Tamir | basin. In individual cases a shortness
 Of water supply in some places has
 been caused by tapping the river fur
 ther upstream for purposes of irriga- tion, but a number of circumstances
 suggest the possibility that there was formerly a greater rainfall in eastern
 Turkestan than now. Climatologists
 are familiar with great differences in
 precipitation during short periods.
 Even where rain is abundant it is easy
 to detect such eccentricities. Some au-
 thorities believe that drouths, separ-
 ated by compensating eXcesses, occur
 at compara lively regular intervals of ! thirty-five years. But, taking a whole
 century through, it is believed that the annual average at the beginning and end is practically the same. If a slow general change, sufficient to render a once prosperous region uninhabitable,
 has taken place in the Tamir basin, ! therefore the phenomenon is curious | and almost unique. Parallel cases will
 probably be found when it is possible records Of close resemblances are scarce.
 | Professor Bonney, in discussing the
 matter, is reminded of climatic changes which have occurred on far grander
 scale. The glacial age left it's marks over Europe and North America, and
 was not local affair Moreover, from
 it's first development to it's close, it
 lasted many, perhaps a hundred thou
 sand, years. So, too, the early Ter
 tiary period, possibly a million or two
 years ago, was marked by abnormal
 heat Tropical vegetation and animals
 then thrived in what are HOW "tem- perate zones." Geologist3 and astrono-
 mers have speculated as to the causes
 of those wonderful thermal oscilla tions. | None of the explanations which have been suggested. though, seem to clear
 up tine mystery of a cessation of rain | within q few hundred years in an ex- tremely limited district. Historically, i the destruction of the forests men toned by Dr. Hedin appears to have followed, not preceded, the drouth.
 Moreover, few American meteorologists
 now believe that trees promote rain
 fall. Soil which is covered by an eX-
 tensive forest retains the water of
 precipitation like a sponge, and re-
 leases it more slowly into adjacent
 streams than do hillsides which have been cleared. Some check is thus put
 on floods. But the theory that the
 total amount of rain received in To-
 cality in the course of a year is infiu- | enced by forests is less strongly held
 TOW than it was forty or fifty years
 ago. At present the change described by Dr. Hedin is a hard nut to crack. 
 | MT. Andrew Carnegie's busy disposi-