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Kara-Kum

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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Black Sands"), a flat desert in Russian Central Asia. It extends to nearly 1 io,000 sq. m., and is bounded on the N.W. by the Ust-urt plateau, between the Sea of Aral and the Caspian Sea, on the N.E. by the Amu-darya, on the S. by the Turkoman oases, and on the W. it nearly reaches the Caspian Sea. Only part of this surface is covered with sand. There are broad expanses (takyrs ) of clay soil upon which water accumulates in the spring; in the summer these are muddy, but later quite dry, and merely a few Solanaceae and bushes grow on them. There is also shor, similar to the above but encrusted with salt and gypsum, and relieved only by Solanaceae along their borders. The remainder is occupied with sand, which, according to V. Mainov, assumes five different forms. (1) Barkhans, chiefly in the east, which are mounds of loose sand, 15 to 35 ft. high, hoof-shaped, having their gently sloping convex sides turned towards the prevailing winds, and a concave side, 30° to 40° steep, on the opposite slope. They are disposed in groups or chains, and the winds drive them at an average rate of 20 ft. annually towards the south and south-east. Some grass ( Stipa pennata ) and bushes of saksaul (Haloxylon ammodendron ) and other steppe bushes (e.g. Calligonium, Halimodendron and Atraphaxis ) grow on them. (2) Mounds of sand, of about the same size, but irregular in shape and of a slightly firmer consistence, mostly bearing the same bushes, and also Artemisia and Tamarix; they are chiefly met with in the east and south. (3) A sandy desert, slightly undulating, and covered in spring with grass and flowers (e.g. tulips, Rheum, various Umbelliferae), which are soon burned by the sun; they cover very large spaces in the southeast. (4) Sands disposed in waves from 50 to 70 ft., and occasionally up to 100 ft. high, at a distance of from 200 to 400 ft. from each other; they cover the central portion, and their vegetation is practically the same as in the preceding division. (5) Dunes on the shores of the Caspian, composed of moving sands, 35 to 80 ft. high and devoid of vegetation.

A typical feature of the Kara-kum is the number of "old river beds," which may have been either channels of tributaries of the Amu and other rivers or depressions which contained elongated salt lakes. Water is only found in wells, 10 to 20 m. apart - sometimes as much as loo m. - which are dug in the takyrs and give saline water, occasionally unfit to drink, and in pools of rain-water retained in the lower parts of the takyrs. The population of the Kara-kum, consisting of nomad Kirghiz and Turkomans, is very small. The region in the north of the province of Syr-darya, between Lake Aral and Lake Chalkarteniz, is also called Kara-kum. (P. A. K.; J. T. BE.)