Waterbury evening Democrat., 1906-10-27
DESICCATION OF ASIA.
Failure of the Water Supply Potent
 Cause of Migrations.

i The phenomena or rivers, larSe
 and small, of springs, lakes, rulns and vegetation, all seem to point
 to a gradual desiccation of Chinese
 Turkestan for nearly 1,5OO miles
 east and west and 800 north ana south. The records of antlqulty | indicate that the Caspian and Aral seas were once more extensive than
 now, and presumably that the tripu- tary rivers were much larger. larhs- caspia, eastern Persia and the neigh boring regions appear to have been
 subject. to a desiccation similar 10 that of Turkestan, and indicated by
 similar phenomena. Thus all the more arid part of Asia, from the Cas- pian sea eastward for more than F. 500 miles, appears to have been SUD- feet to a climatic change whereby 1t has been growing less and less haOl- table for the last two or three thou- sand years.
 Such a change, embracing Persia,
 Baluchistan, Afghanistan, Russian
 Turkestan and Chinese Turkestan, and covering thousands of square miles of habitable country into des- ert, can hardly fail to have had some effect upon human distribution and history. In Chinese -urkestan part at least of the ancient towns appear
 to have been abandoned deliberately, presumably because the water sup ply became limited Movements of the same sort are to-day taking place on a small scale all over the arid parts of Asia. In 1904 500 Cossack nomads. with their fiOcks and herds, came to Lob Nor. and would have settled among the reeds of the lower Cherchea river If Chinese soldiers
 had not driven them out with blood
 shed. The nomads had come from
 the Altai mountains, where pasture had become too scanty either because of increasing drought or increasing
 population. or more probably both.
 Such movements only need to he
 magnified to cause invasiOns like
 those of the Dark Ages. That they
 were magnified in Turkestan when
 the buddhist towns were abandoned appears highly probable. The aban- fonment took place in the early cen turies of the Christian era. and for most of the time from that day to this the whole country from Keriya eastward for 600 miles. almost 10 China proper. remained practically
 uninhabitei. even more so tan to- day. Not only the inhabitants of the
 towns disappeared. but also the shep-
 herd tribes among the mountains.
 who. judging from names. traditions and ancient roads and dwellings.
 were formerly numerous. and who
 would feel the pinch of aridity more
 quickly and keenly than the towns
 people. Part of the population may
 have been killed In war or have died
 in the epidemics which rage when a country is OyerpOpulated, but the
 rest must have migrated. If, though onA in bands of few thousands. they invaded regions already well populated. where the means of live lihoOd were growing less because of desiceation. distress and wars would ensue and the only relief would lie in further and greater mIzratiOns. Thus. all central Asia being under the same ever increasing stress. 6 succession of dry years. or a change such as has taken place in Chinese TurkeStan since 1900. from aa in- cTsassnE to a decreasing quantity of water in the rivers. might cause mi- Erations equal 10 the greatest re- corded in history. - Geographfczl
 Journal.