Cottia (Mont Genèvre; see Cottii Regnum) made it important in early times, though it cannot have been very strongly fortified, inasmuch as Hannibal, after crossing the Alps in 218 B.C., was able to take it after a three days' siege. It became a colony either under the triumvirs or under Augustus, and it was then no doubt that it was fortified. It was partly burned down in A.D. 69, but continued to be prosperous, as may be gathered from the remains of its fortifications and from the many inscriptions which have been discovered there. The Roman town formed a rectangle 2526 ft. by 2330; the line of the walls, which were 21 ft. high, 7 ft. thick at ground level and 3 ft. at the top, is well known, inasmuch as they were standing till about 1600; and the north gate, the Porta Palatina, still exists; it has a double opening, and two orders of arches above, and is flanked by two sixteen-sided brick towers. The east gate, similar in character, still exists in part within the Palazzo Madama. The north-west corner tower is also in part preserved, and traces of other parts of the enceinte have been found. The interior of the town was divided by seven streets from east to west and eight from north to south into 72 insulae; and the ancient pavement and the drains below it are frequently found under the streets of the central portion of the modern town, indicating that they follow the ancient lines (see especially Notizie degli Scavi, 1902, p. 277). In the great extensions which the city has undergone since 1600, the old rectangular arrangement has been followed. Remains of a theatre have been discovered beneath the Palazzo Vecchio, demolished in 1899 (A. Taramelli, in Notizie degli Scavi, 1900, p. 3).
See C. Promis, Storia dell' antica Torino (Turin, 1869); A. d'Andrade, Relazione dell' ufficio regionale per la conservazione dei monumenti del Piemonte e della Liguria, 7 seq. (Turin, 1899). (T. As.)
TURKESTAN, a name conventionally employed to designate
the regions of Central Asia which lie between Siberia on the N.
and Tibet, India and Afghanistan on the S., the western limit
being the Caspian Sea and the eastern Mongolia and the Desert
of Gobi. Etymologically the term is intended to indicate the
regions inhabited by Turkish races. How far this name was
appropriate in the past need not be considered here; at present
the regions called Turkestan not only contain races which do not
belong to the Turk family, but it excludes races which do, e.g.
the Turks of the Ottoman Empire. Nevertheless the term, in
its dual application of West Turkestan and East or Chinese
Turkestan, has long been established, and in default of any better
designations cannot very well be dispensed with.
I.—West Turkestan
West Turkestan is very nearly, though not quite, coincident with the territories which Russia possesses and controls in Asia, Siberia excepted. Thus it includes (1) the governor-generalship of Turkestan, embracing the provinces of Ferghana, Samarkand, Semiryechensk, and Syr-darya; the provinces of Akmolinsk and Semipalatinsk, and sometimes that of Turgai belonging to the governor-generalship of the Steppes; the Transcaspian region; and the semi-independent states of Bokhara and Khiva. Its total area amounts approximately to 1,290,000 sq. m.
Physical Geography.—Physically this region is divided into two sharply contrasted parts, the mountainous and highland country in the east and the flat steppes and deserts in the west and north. The former are sufficiently described under the heading Tian-Shan. It will be enough to say here that the mountainous region belongs to the great orographical flange which runs from south-west to north-east along the north-western margin of the great plateau of Central Asia. Hence it consists (1) partly of ranges, mostly snow-capped, which stretch from south-west to north-east, and which in several cases terminate en échelon on the verge of the desert, and (2) partly of ranges which strike away from the above at various angles, but in a predominantly north-western direction. The latter, including such ranges as the Chingiz-tau, Chu-Ili Mountains, Kandyk-tau and Khan-tau, the Ferghana range, the Kara-tau and the Nura-tau, are geologically of later origin than the great border ranges of the Tian-shan proper, e.g. Trans-Alai, Alai, Kokshal-tau, Alexander range, Terskei Ala-tau, Kunghei Ala-tau, Trans-Ili Ala-tau and Dzungarian Ala-tau. The Tarbagatai Mountains, still farther north, are often classified as belonging to the Altai system. Generally speaking, the ranges of both categories run at 10,000 to 20,000 ft., though altitudes as high as 23,000 ft. are attained by individual peaks, such as Mt Kaufmann and Khan-tengri. Most of the loftier summits are capped with perpetual snow, and on some of them, e.g. Khan-tengri (Mushketov, Semenov, Inylchik) and the Kok-su Mountains (Fedchenko, Shurovsky), south of Peak Kaufmann, there are well-developed glaciers. Nearly all these border ranges rise abruptly and to great heights from the plains on the north or north-west, but have a much shorter and easier descent on the south or south-east. Hence the passes lie at great altitudes, ranging from about 9000 to 14,000 ft. On the other hand the fact of the ranges radiating outwards towards the west, and the further fact that they are in more than one place penetrated by deep depressions (e.g. Dzungaria, Kulja, Issyk-kul, Ferghana) for a considerable distance towards the east, greatly facilitate access to the loftier plateau lands of Central Asia, and have from time immemorial been the highways of human intercourse between East and West.
Like the highlands of Siberia, those of Turkestan are fringed by a girdle of plains, having an altitude of 1000 to 1500 ft., and these again are skirted by an immense lowland area reaching only 400, 300 and 150 ft. above sea-level, or even sinking below the level of the ocean.Lowland Plains. Some geographers divide them into two sections—the higher plains of the Balkash (the Ala-kul and Balkash drainage areas) and the Aral-Caspian depression, which occupies nearly two-thirds of the whole and has been ably described by I. V. Mushketov under the appropriate name of Turanian basin—the Kara-tau Mountains, between the Chu and the Syr-darya rivers, being considered as the dividing line between the two. The Balkash plains, more than 1000 ft. above the sea, and covered with clay, with a girdle of loess at their foot, are well drained by the Ili and other feeders of Lake Balkash and support the numerous flocks and herds of the Kirghiz. To the south-west the clayey soil becomes saline. There is the Famine steppe (Bekpak-dala), while in the Ak-kum steppe, which surrounds Lake Kara-kul, large areas consist of nothing but sands, partly shifting. The plains and lowlands of the Turanian basin are subdivided by a line drawn from north-east to south-west along a slight range of hills running from the sources of the Ishim towards the south-east corner of the Caspian (Bujnurd and Elburz edge of Khorasan). This low range, which most probably separated the lowlands of the Aral-Caspian region (submerged during the Post-Pliocene period) from the higher plains which had emerged by the end of the Tertiary period, now divides the Transcaspian steppes from the somewhat different higher plains. In the Turanian basin the contrast between desert and oasis is much stronger than in the Balkash region. Fertile soil, or rather soil which can be rendered fertile by irrigation, is limited to a narrow terrace of loess along the foot of the mountains, and is surrounded by barren deserts. Even where the loess stretches out over terraces at some distance from the mountains, as in the south-east of the Transcaspian region, it can be cultivated only when irrigated. Two rivers only—the Syr and the Amu—succeed in getting across the desert and reaching the Sea of Aral. But their former tributaries no longer run their full course: the glacier-fed Zarafshan dries up amid the gardens of Bokhara soon after emerging from the highlands; and the Tejen and the Murghab lose themselves in the recesses of the Kara-kum desert. The only tributaries which the Amu retains are those whose whole course is within the highlands. In the north such formerly important tributaries of the Syr-darya as the Chu, with its sub-tributary the Sary-su, now dry up some hundreds of miles before reaching the main stream.
The whole area is now undergoing geological changes on a vast scale. Rivers have changed their courses, and lakes their outlines. Far away from their present shores the geologist finds indubitable signs of the recent presence of lakes in the shells they have left amid the sands.Desiccation. Traces of former rivers and channels, which were the main arteries of prosperous regions within the period of written history, have now disappeared. Of the highly developed civilizations which grew up and flourished in Bactria, Bokhara and Samarkand the last survivals are now undergoing rapid obliteration with the simultaneous desiccation of the rivers and lakes. The great “Blue Sea” of Central Asia, the Sea of Aral, which at a recent epoch (Post-Glacial) extended south-west as far as Sary-kamysh, and the shells of which are found north and east of its present shores 50 to 200 ft. above its present level (157 ft. above the ocean, and 248 above the Caspian), now occupies but a small portion of its former extent. It fills a shallow depression which is drying up with astonishing rapidity, so that the process of desiccation can be shown on surveys separated by intervals of only ten years; large parts of it, like Aibughir Gulf, have dried up since the Russians took possession of its shores. The whole country is dotted over with lakes, which are rapidly disappearing under the hot winds of the deserts.
Geology.[1]—Like the highlands of eastern Asia, those of Turkestan are mostly built up on Pre-Cambrian gneisses and metamorphic slates, resting upon granites, syenites, old orthoclase porphyries, and the like. These upheavals date from the remotest geological ages; and since the Primary epoch a triangular continent having its- ↑ R. Pumpelly and others, Explorations in Turkestan (Washington, 1905), contains references to the geological literature to the date of publication.
