CASPIAN SEA, a great inland sea of Asia, bounded on the north by the Russian government of Astracan; on the east by the great sandy deserts of Tartary; on the south by the Persian province of Mazanderan; and on the west by the Persian province of Ghilan, the ridges of Caucasus, the principalities of Baku, Derbend, and Circassia, together with part of the government of Astracan. According to the most accurate surveys that have been made by Russian navigators, under the orders of Peter I., this sea extends in length from north to south 646 miles, in breadth 265 miles in the northern part, and 235 in the southern; and the total circuit of the coast, including gulfs and bays, is 2350 miles. The shore is flat all around, and there is no depth of water; but beyond this the depth is very great; and Hanway mentions that he could not find the bottom with a line of 480 fathoms. It is of very dangerous navigation on account of its frequent shallows along the shore, and many disasters occur to mariners. Fierce tempests occasionally burst forth from the high mountains which inclose it on different sides. There are certain winds that domineer over it with such absolute sway, that vessels are often deprived of every resource; and in the whole extent of it there is not a port that can truly be called safe. The north, north-east, and east winds, blow most frequently, and occasion the most violent tempests. Along the eastern shore the east winds prevail; for which reason vessels bound from Persia to Astracan always direct their course along this shore.

The waters of the Caspian are as salt as those of the ocean, and very impure; the vast number of rivers that run into it, and the nature of its bottom, affecting it greatly. It is true, that in general the waters are salt; but though the whole western shore extends from the 46th to the 35th degree of north latitude, and though one might conclude from analogy that these waters would contain a great deal of salt, yet experiments prove the contrary; and it is certain that the saltness of this sea is diminished by the north, north-east, and north-west winds, although we may with equal reason conclude that it owes its saltness to the mines of salt which lie along its two banks, and which are either already known or will be known to posterity. The depth of these waters also diminishes gradually as you approach the shores, and their saltness in the same way grows less in proportion to their proximity to the land; the north winds not unfrequently causing the rivers to discharge into it vast quantities of troubled water impregnated with clay. These variations which the sea is exposed to are more or less considerable, according to the nature of the winds; and they affect the colour of the river waters to a certain distance from the shore, till these mix with that of the sea, which then resumes the ascendency, and the fine green colour appears which is natural to the ocean, and to all those bodies of water that communicate with it.
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It is well known that, besides its salt taste, all sea-water has a sensible bitterness, which must be attributed not only to the salt itself, but to the mixture of different substances that unite with it, particularly to different sorts of alum, and is the ordinary effect of different combinations of acids. Besides this, the waters of the Caspian have another taste, bitter too, but quite diśtinct, which affects the tongue with an impression similar to that made by the bile of animals; a property which ⅛ peculiar to this sea, though not equally sensible at all seasons. When the north and northwest winds have raged for a considerable time, this bitter taste is sensibly felt; but when the wind has been south, very imperfectly. We shall endeavour to account for this phenomenon.

The Caspian is bounded on its western side by the mountains of Caucasus, which extend from Derbend to the Black Sea. These mountains make a curve near Astracan, and directing their course towards the eastern shore of the Caspian, lose themselves near the mouth of the Yaik, where they become secondary mountains, being disposed in strata. As Caucasus is an inexhaustible magazine of combustible substances, it consequently lodges an astonishing quantity of metals in its bowels. Accordingly, along the foot of this immense chain of mountains, we sometimes meet with warm springs, sometimes springs of naphtha of different quality; sometimes we find native sulphur, mines of vitriol, or lakes heated by internal fires. Now the foot of Mount Caucasus forming the immediate western shore of the Caspian Sea, it is very easy to imagine that a great quantity of the constituent parts of the former must be communicated to the latter; but it is chiefly to the naphtha, which abounds so much in the countries which surround this sea, that we must attribute the true cause of the bitterness peculiar to its waters; for it is certain that this bitumen flows from the mountains, sometimes in all its purity, and sometimes mixed with other substances which it acquires in its passage through subterranean channels, from the most interior parts of these mountains to the sea, where it falls to the bottom by its specific gravity. It is certain, too, that the north and north-west winds detach the greatest quantities of this naphtha, whence it is evident that the bitter taste must be most sensible when these winds prevail. We may also comprehend why this taste is not so strong at the surface or in the neighbourhood of the shore, the waters there being less impregnated with salt, and the naphtha, which is united with the water by the salt, being then either carried to a distance by the winds, or precipitated to the bottom. But it is not a bitter taste alone that the naphtha communicates to the waters of the Caspian. These waters were analysed by M. Gmelin, and found to contain, besides the common sea salt, a considerable proportion of Glauber salt, intimately united with the former, and which is evidently a production of the naphtha.

The Caspian Sea receives the contents of numerous rivers, which give a tinge to its waters; and it is only at a distance from their mouths that it presents the deep azure hue of the ocean. It is probably also owing to the quantity of extraneous substances carried down by these rivers that there are so many dangerous shoals and so few good harbours within its compass; and, considering the number and size of its numerous rivers, it is not easy to conceive how so vast a quantity of water can be carried off by evaporation. On the north is the Yaik, 100 fathoms wide and eighteen feet deep at the mouth; next the Yemba, or Jemba, at the distance of sixty-one miles; the great Oxus flows in at the west side, seventy miles north of the Gulf of Karabogaskoi. Ninety-three miles south of this gulf the river Doria flows into the Caspian, forty miles farther south the Ossa or the Orzantes, the Naren and Asterabad on the south-east extremity, and the Kizitozein on the south-west. From the vast Caucasian chain of mountains which forms the western coast descend numerous rivers, the chief of which is the Thur, which, after receiving the Araxes, is discharged into the Caspian by five different mouths; and at the higher extremity is the Wolga, which pours an immense volume of water into the same sea by thirty-two different channels. Many of these rivers run with a furious course into the Caspian, and in travelling along its shores experienced guides are necessary to find out the practicable fords in these torrents, which frequently sweep, by the irresistible fury of their stream, both man and horse into the ocean. Fraser, who travelled in Persia in 1822, mentions, that the day before he passed the river of Chahloos, a woman on horseback was carried away in this manner and perished.^[1. See Fraser’s Travels and Adventures on the Southern Banks of the Caspian Sea , chap, viii. ]

There are numerous islands in the Caspian, some of them of great extent. Towards the north-east is the island of Kulaha, with a good harbour; and on the same side, between lat. 39. and 40., Idak, Deverish, Naphthonia, which extends about twenty miles in length from north to south, and contains several wells of naphtha, and abundance of good water; Dargan, Dagadaw, and Ogrujinskoi in the Gulf of Balkan, or near its mouth. Chitcheena, called Czeczeni by D’Anville, and Trenzeni by others, is the most important of all the islands in the Caspian. It is situated on the western coast, opposite to the city of Yerki in Circassia. On the same side, and much farther south, are the islands of Swetoizeloi, Toolen, and Kura. Between 42. and 43. north latitude a sand extends sixty miles in length by twenty-seven or thirty in breadth, with twenty fathoms depth of water, which is always discoloured. There are several islands on this bank, which are generally of inconsiderable size, and for the most part near the shore.

A great proportion of the northern coast of the Caspian is low and marshy, or composed of sandy flats; and there is no depth of water to float a vessel several miles from the shore. There are here also many dangerous quicksands, in which travellers are frequently swallowed up; and Fraser, the enterprising traveller already mentioned, had a narrow escape. His horse sunk in a shallow so deep that the water flowed over his back, and it was only by turning short and floundering backwards until he got his fore-feet on solid ground that he was enabled to regain the shore. In other parts the coast is rocky, or high and mountainous, and has several spacious bays, which are calculated to afford shelter to shipping. The Gulf of Is-kawder, or Alexander, towards the northern extremity, is a fine harbour, twenty miles long and twelve broad. The Gulf of Karabogaskoi, or Carabuga, in lat. 4L 21., extends fifty-five miles by fifty-three in an elliptical form, with very deep water. The Gulf of Balkan lies at the base of the mountain of that name; and in the south-east extremity is the Bay of Astrabad, which is formed by a neck of land varying in breadth from four to twelve miles, and running from a point near Astrabad, and dividing a strip of water, from eight to forty miles broad, from the main body of the Caspian. The Caspian Sea has many ports, but of these, as already stated, there are few which afford any secure haven for shipping, owing to the nature of the bottom, or to the prevalence of certain winds. On the south there was formerly a port in Asterabad Bay, but it is now in ruins. There are still the harbours of Langarood [7:6:217] and Euzelli; and on the west are those of Baku, Derbend, and Yerki.

The Caspian Sea, in proportion to the great extent of its surface, produces but few varieties of fish; and not communicating with the ocean, it cannot receive from it any portion of its inexhaustible stores. But the fish which are found in this lake multiply to such a degree that the Russians, by their industry, convert them into a never-failing source of wealth. The fisheries of the Caspian form the sole occupation and principal trade of the various tribes inhabiting the banks of the Wolga and the Yaik. These fisheries are divided into the great and small; the former comprehending the sturgeon, beluga, and sterlet; the latter the salmon, carp of various species, tench, and others.

Seals are the principal quadrupeds that inhabit the Caspian; but they are there in such numbers as to afford the means of subsistence to many people in that country, as well as in Greenland. The varieties of the species are numerous, diversified however only by the colour. Some are quite black, others quite white; there are some whitish, some yellowish, some of a mouse colour, and some streaked like a tiger. They crawl by means of their fore feet upon the islands, where they become the prey of the fishermen, who kill them with long clubs. As soon as one is dispatched, he is succeeded by several who come to the assistance of their unhappy companion, but come only to share his fate. They are exceedingly tenacious of life, and endure more than thirty hard blows before they die. They will even live for several days after having received many mortal wounds. They are most terrified by fire and smoke, and as soon as they perceive them, retreat with the utmost expedition to the sea. These animals grow so very fat that they look rather like oil bags than animals. At Astracan is made a sort of gray soap with their fat mixed with pot-ashes, which is much valued for its property of cleansing and taking grease from woollen stuffs. The greatest numbers of seals are killed in spring and autumn. Many small vessels go from Astracan merely for the purpose of catching them. A species of otter is also found in the waters, and on the shores of the Caspian Sea. It is about three and a half feet long, including a short tail; it has four webbed feet; its head resembles that of an otter, and its body is covered with thick and fine brown hair.

If the Caspian has few quadrupeds, it has in proportion still fewer of those natural productions which are looked upon as proper only to the sea. There have never been found in it any zoophytes, nor any animal of the order of mollusea. The same may almost be said of shells, the only ones found being three or four species of cockle, the common muscle, some species of snails, and one or two others. But to compensate this sterility, it abounds in birds of different kinds. Of those that frequent the shores there are many species of the goose and duck kind, of the stork and heron, and others of the water tribe. Of birds properly aquatic, it contains the grebe, the crested diver, the pelican, the cormorant, and almost every species of gull. Crows are so fond of fish that they haunt the shores of the Caspian in prodigious multitudes.

Many suppose (and there are strong presumptions in favour of the supposition), that the shores of the Caspian were much more extensive in ancient times than they are at present, and that it once communicated with the Black Sea, and also, as Pallas supposes, with the Sea of Azof. It is probable, too, that the level of the Black Sea was once much higher than it is at present. If, then, it be allowed that the waters of the Black Sea, before it procured an exit by the straits of Constantinople, rose several fathoms above their present level, which from many concurring circumstances may easily be admitted, it will follow, that all the plains of the Crimea, of the Kuman, of the Wolga, and of the Yaik, and those of Great Tartary beyond the Lake of Aral, in ancient times formed but one sea, which embraced the northern extremity of Caucasus by a narrow strait of little depth, the vestiges of which are still obvious in the river Mantysch.