Turning from the system to its operation, we find the most important works connected with the Murghāb, that ancient source of Merv’s prosperity. It rises in Afghanistān, as do its confluents, the Kāshān and Kushk, a fact which places the Merv oasis at the mercy of the Amīr. It is more than probable that the next rectification of frontier demanded by Russia will comprise the whole watershed of these streams. The course of the Murghāb in Russian territory is 530 miles long; its breadth at Merv is 84 feet, and its depth 7. The Panjdih oasis, with a cultivated area of 75,000 acres, owes its fertility to this river, whose waters are confined by a dam called the Kawshut Khān Band. Farther north we have the Yolatan oasis, inhabited by Sārik Turkomans, with another huge dam, known as the Kāzī Keui Band, affording water to 125,000 acres, at a velocity of 1500 feet per second. Near its site are the ruins of the Sultān Band, a work far vaster than any of the present day. It gave a head of 28 feet, and made the fields and gardens of Old Merv the most fertile region on the globe’s surface. The Sultān Band was destroyed in 1784 by the Amīr Murād of Bokhārā,[672] a piece of vandalism which ruined Merv’s prosperity and made it a robbers’ lair. Just a century later the Tsar, to whose private estates the site of Old Merv belongs, ordered the construction of an anicut 13 miles up stream. The work was carried out by Colonel Kashtalinski, superintendent of the state domains at Bahrām `Ali, the first railway station east of modern Merv. It includes a dam which gives a 14 feet head of water, and is connected with a series of storage basins feeding a central canal 20 miles long. This, in its turn, supplies 35 miles of secondary canals and 105 of distributories. The area thus irrigated amounts to 15,000 acres, 5000 of which are under cotton, and 3675 grow wheat and barley. The whole is let out to Turkomans and Bokhārans, and the mountains of cotton waiting for transport by rail in the season are a standing proof of the excellence of the crops; the return is indeed said to be not far short of a hundredfold. So great is the demand for farms that the natives compete for the privilege of holding one at a rent in kind amounting to a quarter of the gross produce. In spite of prohibitions, subletting is very rife, and the same plot supports several families. The cost of these splendid operations was about £105,000, an expenditure which was declared by an eminent English authority on irrigation to be one-fifth of what a similar work would entail in India. It is in contemplation to restore the Sultān Band, at a cost estimated at £210,000. There can be few better investments for capital than one which will restore to the brightest jewel of Russia’s Asiatic diadem a portion of her ancient splendour.