BALKASH, or Balkhash (called by the Kirghiz Ak-denghiz or Ala-denghiz and by the Chinese Si-hai), a lake of Asiatic Russia, in the Kirghiz steppes, between the governments of Semipalatinsk and Semiryechensk, in 45° to 47° N. and 73° 30' to 79° E., about 600 m.
The chief feeder of the lake is the Ili, which rises in the Khantengri group of the Tian-shan Mountains.
The fauna of the lake and of its tributaries - explored by Nikolsky - is more akin to the fauna of the rivers of the Tarim basin than to that of the Aral; it also does not contain the common frog.
The remainder of the province consists of a fertile steppe in the north-east (Sergiopol), and vast uninhabitable sand-steppes on the south of LakeBalkash.
In the Balkash steppes the winter is very cold; the lake freezes every year, and the thermometer falls to 13° F. In the Ala-kul steppes the winds blow away the snow.
LakeBalkash, or Denghiz, Lake Ala-kul (which was connected with Balkash in the post-Pliocene period, but now stands some hundred feet higher, and is connected by a chain of smaller lakes with Sissyk-kul), Lake Issyk-kul and the alpine lakes of Son-kul and Chatyr-kul are the principal sheets of water.
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