The Greeks in Bactria and India c27.11

c27.11

The scientific evidence is in a hopeless tangle. M. Konshin, who investigated the ground earlier than Obrutschew,⁴ and F. Walther, who investigated it later,⁵ gave results which on two different lines were incompatible with his and with a lost river; he in turn has declared that they are wrong, while Konshin has said that he is wrong.⁶ There seems to be no later scientific evidence, or rather, if such exists in Russia, it has not been made available to the western world. One important point, however, appears to have been overlooked. The Oxus is recorded to have burst through into Sary Kamish more than once during the nineteenth century, but it did not seek the Caspian or go any farther. If then 2000 years ago a perennial river, fed by the Oxus and large enough to carry shipping, flowed from Sary Kamish down the Uzboi to Balkan Bay, it would seem that the Oxus must have carried a far greater volume of water than it has done in modern times; certainly it then received some tributaries which do not now reach it, but on the other hand much more was being drawn off in Bactria for irrigation than in the nineteenth century.