North Eastern Europe - The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques And Discoveries Of The English Nation - Volume 3 - Collected By Richard Hakluyt
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The United Stream Flows Westwards Towards Balkh, Before
Reaching Which It Gradually Trends To The Northwest Until, After A Course
Of About 1300 Miles, It Reaches The South Coast Of The Aral Sea.
In parts
the stream has a breadth of 800 yards, with a depth of 20 feet, and a very
rapid current; but the vast quantity of sedimentary matter which it brings
down to the month, forming shifting sands and banks, renders it difficult
to navigate.
A great portion of the volume of the stream is absorbed in the
irrigation of the Khivan Oasis. The tendency of the Oxus, like that of the
great Siberian rivers, is to press continually on its right or east bank,
and twice within historic times it has oscillated between the Caspian and
Aral Seas. In the fourteenth century it is supposed to have entered the
Caspian by the Uzboi channel, near Mikhailovsk. It was proposed at one time
to attempt to reopen this bed, but the scheme has been abandoned in favour
of the steppe river, Chagan. Herodotus seems to refer to the Oxus under the
name of Araxes, but his description is confused, and many of his
commentators suppose that the Araxes of Herodotus is the river of the same
name in Armenia; while others suppose that it is either the Volga or the
Jaxartes. Strabo says that the Oxus rose in the Indian mountains and flowed
into the Caspian, which is also the opinion of Mela and Ptolemy. Pliny
makes it rise in a lake called Oxus, and the truth of his statement is now
confirmed.]
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