Abstract
Lake Balkhash.—Mr. B. F. Meffert, who visited this lake during a journey in Russian Asia in 1910. has given an account of its basin in the Izvestiya of the Imp. Russ. Geogr. Soc., Nos. i.–v., 1912. The basin is intimately connected with those of the lakes Sasyk-kul, Ala-kul, and Ebi-nor. The rocks are chiefly Palæozoic and eruptive rocks of various ages. Deposits dating no further back than the Tertiary are rare, and occur only in the eastern part of the basin. At some time or other before the Tertiary period the Palæozoic rocks were folded in various directions, chiefly north-west and west. When the faulting and upheavals which formed the horsts and troughs of the Tarbagatai, Dzungarian Alatau, the Chu-Ili watershed, &c., took place is not known, but in some parts they may be referred to the Tertiary period, and also the subsidence, at least of the western part of the basin, is probably of the same age. Mr. A. M. Nikolski has connected Balkhash with the Han-hai, not with the Turkestan basin, believing that the Han-hai with Balkhash was isolated before the separation of the Aralo-Caspian sea from the Siberian, and certainly no Aralo-Caspian deposits occur for some distance west of Balkhash. Marks of high water are found on the north-west of the lake 100 ft. above the present level, and therefore the lake must at one time have covered a large area to the south and east. According to Golubief, the lakes Sasyk-kul, Uyali, and Ala-kul formed one lake within the memory of man, and the difference of level between Ala-kul and Ebi-nor is only 25 ft. During last century there was a long period of desiccation, but for the last twenty years the lake has been rising. The water of the western part of the lake, into which the Hi pours considerable volumes, is quite sweet, but it is brackish in the small bays and channels.
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Russian Geographical Papers . Nature 91, 488–489 (1913). https://doi.org/10.1038/091488b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/091488b0