[Sidenote: Will. de Rubricis describeth this riuer of Ardok, cap. 4.] Note that in times past there did fal into this gulf the great river Oxus, which hath his springs in the mountains of Paraponisus in India, and now commeth not so far, but falleth into another riuer called Ardock, which runneth toward the North, and consumeth himself in the ground passing vnder ground aboue 500. miles, and then issueth out againe and falleth into the lake of Kithay. [Footnote: Oxus, the Jihun of the Arab, the Amu-darya of the Persians, and the Vak-shu of the Hindus, is a river of Central Asia, in Turkestan, draining the Great Pamir through two head streams--the Panja or southern, rising in Lake Victoria, 13,900 feet above the sea-level, and the Ak-su or Murghah, or northern, said to flow from Lake Barkal Yasin, 13,000 feet above the sea-level, and receiving the outflow of Lake Kara-kul above the junction. The united stream flows westwards towards Balkh, before reaching which it gradually trends to the northwest until, after a course of about 1300 miles, it reaches the south coast of the Aral Sea. In parts the stream has a breadth of 800 yards, with a depth of 20 feet, and a very rapid current; but the vast quantity of sedimentary matter which it brings down to the month, forming shifting sands and banks, renders it difficult to navigate. A great portion of the volume of the stream is absorbed in the irrigation of the Khivan Oasis. The tendency of the Oxus, like that of the great Siberian rivers, is to press continually on its right or east bank, and twice within historic times it has oscillated between the Caspian and Aral Seas. In the fourteenth century it is supposed to have entered the Caspian by the Uzboi channel, near Mikhailovsk. It was proposed at one time to attempt to reopen this bed, but the scheme has been abandoned in favour of the steppe river, Chagan. Herodotus seems to refer to the Oxus under the name of Araxes, but his description is confused, and many of his commentators suppose that the Araxes of Herodotus is the river of the same name in Armenia; while others suppose that it is either the Volga or the Jaxartes. Strabo says that the Oxus rose in the Indian mountains and flowed into the Caspian, which is also the opinion of Mela and Ptolemy. Pliny makes it rise in a lake called Oxus, and the truth of his statement is now confirmed.]