side. During the earlier years of Alexander, Arakcheev was completely overlooked. Only on the 27th of April 1803, was the count recalled to St Petersburg, and employed as inspector-general of the artillery. His wise and thorough reorganization of the whole department contributed essentially to the victories of the Russians during the Napoleonic wars. All critics agree, indeed, that the Arakcheev administration was the golden era of the Russian artillery. The activity of the inexhaustible inspector knew no bounds, and he neglected nothing which could possibly improve this arm. His principal reforms were the subdivision of the artillery divisions into separate independent units, the formation of artillery brigades, the establishment of a committee of instruction (1808), and the publishing of an Artillery Journal. At Austerlitz he had the satisfaction of witnessing the actual results of his artillery reforms. The commissariat scandals which came to light after the peace of Tilsit convinced the emperor that nothing short of the stern and incorruptible energy of Arakcheev could reach the sources of the evil, and in January 1808 he was appointed inspector-general and war minister. When, on the outbreak of the Swedish war of 1809, the emperor ordered the army to take advantage of an unusually severe frost and cross the ice of the Gulf of Finland, it was only the presence of Arakcheev that compelled an unwilling general and a semi-mutinous army to begin a campaign which ended in the conquest of Finland. On the institution of the “Imperial Council” (1st of January 1810), Arakcheev was made a member of the council of ministers and a senator, while still retaining the war office. Subsequently Alexander was alienated from him owing to the intrigues of the count’s enemies, who hated him for his severity and regarded him as a dangerous reactionary. The alienation was not, however, for long. It is true, Arakcheev took no active part in the war of 1812, but all the correspondence and despatches relating to it passed through his hands, and he was the emperor’s inseparable companion during the whole course of it. At Paris (31st of March 1814) Alexander, with his own hand, wrote the ukaz appointing him a field-marshal, but he refused the dignity, accepting, instead, a miniature portrait of his master. From this time Alexander’s confidence in Arakcheev steadily increased, and the emperor imparted to him, first of all, his many projects of reform, especially his project of military colonies, the carrying out of the details of which was committed to Arakcheev (1824). The failure of the scheme was due not to any fault of the count, but to the inefficiency and insubordination of the district officers. In Alexander’s last years Arakcheev was not merely his chief counsellor, but his dearest friend, to whom he submitted all his projects for consideration and revision. The most interesting of these projects was the plan for the emancipation of the peasantry (1818). On the accession of Nicholas I., Arakcheev, thoroughly broken in health, gradually restricted his immense sphere of activity, and on the 26th of April 1826, resigned all his offices and retired to Carlsbad. The 50,000 roubles presented to him by the emperor as a parting gift he at once handed to the Pavlovsk Institute for the education of the daughters of poor gentlemen. His last days he spent on his estate at Gruzina, carefully collecting all his memorials of Alexander, whose memory he most piously cherished. He also set aside 25,000 roubles for the author of the best biography of his imperial friend. Arakcheev died on the 21st of April 1834, with his eyes fixed to the last on the late emperor’s portrait. “I have now done everything,” he said, “so I can go and make my report to the emperor Alexander.” In 1806 he had married Natalia Khomutova, but they lived apart, and he had no children by her.
See Vasily Ratch, Memorials of Count Arakcheev (Rus.) (St Petersburg, 1864); Mikhail Ivanovich Semevsky, Count Arakcheev and the Military Colonies (Rus.) (St Petersburg, 1871); Theodor Schiemann, Gesch. Russland’s unter Kaiser Nikolaus I., vol. i., Alexander I., &c. (Berlin, 1904). (R. N. B.)
ARAL, a lake or inland sea in the west of Asia, situated between lat. 43° 30′ and 46° 51′ N., and long. 58° 13′ and 61° 56′ E. It was known to the ancient Arab and Persian geographers as the Sea of Khwārizm or Kharezm, from the neighbouring district of the Chorasmians, and derives its present name from the Kirghiz designation of Aral-denghiz, or Sea of Islands. In virtue of its area (26,233 sq. m.) it is the fourth largest inland sea of the world. It has nearly the same length as width, namely about 170 m., if its northern gulf (Kichkineh-denghiz) is left out of account. Its depth is insignificant, the maximum being 220 ft. in a depression in the north-west, and the mean depth only 50 ft., so that notwithstanding its area it contains only eleven times as much water as the Lake of Geneva. Its altitude is 24212 ft. above the Caspian, i.e. about 155 ft. above the ocean. The lake is surrounded on the north by steppes; on the west by the rocky plateau of Ust-Urt, which separates it from the Caspian; on the south by the alluvial district of Khiva; and on the east by the Kyzyl-kum, or Red Sand Desert. On the north the shores are comparatively low, and the coast-line is broken by a number of irregular bays, of which the most important are those of Sary-chaganak and Paskevich. On the west an almost unbroken wall of rock extends from Chernychev Bay southwards, rising towards the middle to 500 ft. The southern coast is occupied by the delta of the Oxus (Jīhūn, Amu-darya), one of the arms of which, the Laudan, forms a swamp, 80 m. long and 20 broad, before it discharges into the sea. The only other tributary of any size that the sea receives is the Jaxartes (Sihūn, Syr-darya) which enters towards the northern extremity of the east coast, and is suspected to be shifting its embouchure more and more to the north. This river, as well as the Amu, conveys vast quantities of sediment into the lake; the delta of the Syr-darya increased by 1334 sq. m. between 1847 and 1900. The eastern coast is fringed with multitudes of small islands, and other islands, some of considerable size, are situated in the open towards the north and west. Kug-Aral, the largest, lies opposite the mouth of the Syr-darya, cutting off the Kichkineh-denghiz or Little Sea. The next largest island is the Nikolai, nearly in the middle. Navigation is dangerous owing to the frequency and violence of the storms, and the almost total absence of shelter. The north-east wind is the most prevalent, and sometimes blows for months together. The only other craft, except the steamships of the Russians, that venture on the waters, are the flat-bottomed boats of the Kirghiz.
In regard to the period of the formation of the Aral there were formerly two theories. According to Sir H. C. Rawlinson (Proc. Roy. Geog. Soc., March 1867) the disturbances which produced the present lake took place in the course of the middle ages; while Sir Roderick Murchison contended (Journ. of Roy. Geog. Soc., 1867, p. cxliv. &c.) that the Caspian and Aral existed as separate seas before and during all the historic period, and that the main course of the rivers Jaxartes and Oxus was determined in a prehistoric era. The former based his opinion largely on historical evidence, and the latter trusted principally to geological data. There is no doubt that in recent historical times Lake Aral had a much greater extension than it has at the present time, and that its area is now diminishing. This is, of course, due to the excess of evaporation over the amount of water supplied by its two feeders, the Amu-darya and the Syr-darya, both of which are seriously drawn upon for irrigation in all the oases they flow through. Old shore lines and other indications point to the level of the lake having once been 50 ft. above the existing level. Nevertheless the general desiccation is subject to temporary fluctuations, which appear to correspond to the periods recently suggested by Eduard Brückner (b. 1862); for, whereas the lake diminished and shrank during 1850–1880, since the latter year it has been rising again. Islands which were formerly connected with the shore are now some distance away from it and entirely surrounded by water. Moreover, on a graduated level, put down in 1874, there was a permanent rise of nearly 4 ft. by 1901. The temperature at the bottom was found (1900–1902) by Emil Berg to be 33·8° Fahr., while that of the surface varied from 44·5° to 80·5° between May and September; the mean surface temperature for July was 75°. The salinity of the water is much less than that of the ocean, containing only 1·05% of salt, and the lake freezes every year for a great distance from its shores. The opinion that Lake Aral periodically disappeared, which was for a long
