ture of the surface
water 60 m. from Baku was 72.9 deg., but that below 10 fathoms it sank
rapidly, and at 200 fathoms and below it was constant at 21.2 deg.

_Navigation_.--The development of the petroleum industry in the Apeshron
peninsula (Baku) and the opening (1886) of the Transcaspian railway have
greatly increased the traffic across the Caspian Sea. A considerable
quantity of raw cotton is brought from Ferghana by the latter route and
shipped at Krasnovodsk for the mills in the south and centre of Russia,
as well as for countries farther west. And Russia draws her own supplies
of petroleum, both for lighting and for use as liquid fuel, by the sea
route from Baku. Other ports in addition to those just mentioned are
Astrakhan, on the Volga; Petrovsk, Derbent and Lenkoran, on the west
shore; Enzeli or Resht, and Astarabad, on the Persian coast; and
Mikhailovsk, on the east coast. The Russians keep a small naval flotilla
on the Caspian, all other nations being debarred from doing so by the
treaty of Turkmanchai (1828).

At various times and by various persons, but more particularly by Peter
the Great, the project has been mooted of cutting a canal between the
Volga and the Don, and so establishing unrestricted water communication
between the Caspian and the Black Sea; but so far none of these schemes
has taken practical shape. In 1900 the Hydrotechnical Congress of Russia
discussed the plan of constructing a canal to connect the Caspian more
directly with the Black Sea by cutting an artificial waterway about 22
ft. deep and 180 ft. wide from Astrakhan to Taganrog on the Sea of Azov.

See works quoted under ARAL; also von Baer, "Kaspische Studien," in
_Bull. Sci. St-Petersbourg_ (1855-1859), and in Erman's _Archiv russ._
(1855-1856); Radde, _Fauna und Flora des sudwestlichen Kaspigebietes_
(1886); J.V. Mushketov, _Turkestan_ (St Petersburg, 1886), with
bibliographical references; Ivashintsev, _Hydrographic Exploration of
the Caspian Sea_ (in Russian), with atlas (2 vols., 1866); Philippov,
_Marine Geography of the Caspian Basin_ (in Russian, 1877); _Memoirs
of the Aral-Caspian Expedition of 1876-1877_ (2 vols, in Russian),
edited by the St Petersburg Society of Naturalists; Andrusov, "A
Sketch of the Development of the Caspian Sea and its Inhabitants," in
_Zapiski of Russ. Geog. Soc.: General Geog._ vol. xxiv.; Eichwald,
_Fauna Caspio-Caucasica_ (1841); Seidlitz, "Das Karabugas Meerbusen,"