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Geographical Notes

1889; Nature Portfolio; Volume: 39; Issue: 1011 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1038/039470a0

1476-4687

Marine and environmental studies

THE paper on Monday night at the Royal Geographical Society was by the Hon. G. Curzon, M.P., and dealt with the Trans-Caspian Railway, over which Mr. Curzon recently travelled from the Caspian to Samarcand, a distance of 900 miles. Mr. Curzon described the structure of the railway, the engineering and other difficulties met with, the geographical features of the country traversed, and referred in some detail to the political, civilizing, and commercial results of the undertaking. The line is on a 5-foot gauge, which is uniform with the railway system of European Russia, but not with that of British India. The rails are of steel, from 19 to 22 feet long, and are laid upon wooden sleepers at the rate of 2000 sleepers to every mile, being simply spiked down without chairs or bolts. Every piece of timber, iron, and steel employed was brought from the forests or workshops of Russia, for the most part down the Volga and across the Caspian. The line is a single one from start to finish, except at the stations, where there are invariably sidings, and sometimes triangles, for an engine to reverse; it is laid upon a low earthwork or embankment thrown up with the soil scooped out of a shallow trench on either side. The permanent way is not metalled. It has been claimed that this railway is an astonishing engineering phenomenon, inasmuch as it traverses a country previously believed to be inaccessible to such a method of locomotion. But Mr. Curzon maintains, apart from the local lack of material due to the appalling dearth of the country, it is probably the easiest and simplest railway ever built. The region which it traverses is as flat as a billiard-table for almost the entire distance, the steepest gradient being 1 in 150. There are no tunnels, only a few insignificant cuttings, and but three bridges—across the Tejend, across the Murghab at Merv, and across the Amu-daria. The two main difficulties arose from scarcity of water and superabundance of sand. The former was not difficult to overcome, and the various means employed to check the destructive effects of sand will no doubt prove efficacious, though constant watchfulness along the whole line will be required. The really formidable sands are limited to three districts: (1) the first thirty miles from the Caspian; (2) the stretch between the Merv Oasis and the Oxus; and (3) the stretch between the Oxus and Bokhara. Here no vegetation is either visible or, with rare exceptions, possible; the sand, of the most brillant yellow hue, is piled in loose hillocks and mobile dunes, and is swept hither and thither by powerful winds. It has all the appearance of a sea of troubled waves, billow succeeding billow in melancholy succession, with the sand driving like spray from their summits, and great smooth-swept troughs lying between, on which the winds leave the imprint of their fingers in wavy indentations, just like an ebb tide on the sea-shore. Near the Caspian the permanent way was soaked with sea-water so as to give it consistency; in other parts it was covered with a sort of armour-plating of clay. Elsewhere, and in the more desolate regions, other plans were adopted. Light wooden pali ades, 3 or 4 feet-high, made of pine laths, were driven into the tops of the dunes and formed a barrier against which thf winds might pile the sands with impunity. Nur eries for suitable desert plants were started in the Persian Mountains, and the product of these, tamarisk, wild oats, &c., were planted on the sand-hillocks contiguous to the line. Here, too, was planted that strange and interesting denizen of the wilderness the Saxaoitl (Hahxylon ammodendrfln), which with a scanty and often ragged upper-growth, strikes its sturdy roots deep down into the sand, and somehow or other derives sustenance from that to which it gives stability and permanence. Fascines of the branches of this. plant were also cut, laid at right angles to the rails along the edge of the earthwork or embankment, and covered over with a layer of sand. In spite of all these precautions, the sano must always constitute a serious danger to the line. In referring to Merv, and the miles and miles of ruins of the various old Mervs, Mr. Curzon gives the area of the oasis as 1600 square miles, with a population of not more than 100,000. The desert by which the oasis is surrounded is appalling. East and west, and north and south, stretches a troubled ocean of sand, each wave arrested, as it were, in mid career, when just curving to fall. Mr. Curzon never saw anything more melancholy than this wilderness with its sickle-shaped dome-like ridges of sand, succeeding each other with the regularity of infantry files. Each has the appearance of being cloven through the crown, the side facing towards the north-east, whence the prevailing winds blow, being uniform, convex, and smooth, while the southern face is vertical and abrupt. With regard to the famous bridge over the Oxus, Mr. Curzon states that its total length is 2000 yards, and that it rests on more than 3000 piles. The level of the rails is about 30 feet above low, but only 5 feet above high, water.