KARST, in physical geography, the region east of the northern part of the Adriatic. It is composed of high and dry limestone ridges. The country is excessively faulted by a long series of parallel fractures that border the N.E. Adriatic and continue inland that series of steps which descend beneath the sea and produce the series of long parallel islands off the coast of Triest and along the Dalmatian shore. It has been shown by E. Suess (Antlitz der Erde, vol. i. pt. 2, ch. iii.) that the N. Adriatic is a sunken dish that has descended along these fractures and folds, which are not uncommonly the scene of earthquakes, showing that these movements are still in progress. The crust is very much broken in consequence and the water sinks readily through the broken limestone rocks, which owing to their nature are also very absorbent. The result is that the scenery is barren and desolate, and as this structure always, wherever found, gives rise to similar features, a landscape of this character is called a Karst landscape. The water running in underground channels dissolves and denudes away the underlying rock, producing great caves as at Adelsberg, and breaking the surface with sinks, potholes and unroofed chasms. The barren nature of a purely limestone country is seen in the treeless regions of some parts of Derbyshire, while the underground streams and sinks of parts of Yorkshire, and the unroofed gorge formed by the Cheddar cliffs, give some indication of the action that in the high fractured mountains of the Karst produces a depressing landscape which has some of the features of the “bad lands” of America, though due to a different cause.
KARSTEN, KARL JOHANN BERNHARD (1782-1853), German mineralogist, was born at Bützow in Mecklenburg, on the 26th of November 1782. He was author of several comprehensive works, including Handbuch der Eisenhüttenkunde (2 vols., 1816; 3rd ed., 1841); System der Metallurgie geschichtlich, statistisch, theoretisch und technisch (5 vols. with atlas, 1831-1832); Lehrbuch der Salinenkunde (2 vols., 1846-1847). He was well known as editor of the Archiv für Bergbau und Hüttenwesen (20 vols., 1818-1831); and (with H. von Dechen) of the Archiv für Mineralogie, Geognosie, Bergbau und Hüttenkunde (26 vols., 1820-1854). He died at Berlin on the 22nd of August 1853. His son, Dr Hermann Karsten (1809-1877), was professor of mathematics and physics in the university of Rostock.
KARTIKEYA, in Hindu mythology, the god of war. Of his birth there are various legends. One relates that he had no mother but was produced by Siva alone, and was suckled by six nymphs of the Ganges, being miraculously endowed with six faces that he might simultaneously obtain nourishment from each. Another story is that six babes, miraculously conceived, were born of the six nymphs, and that Parvati, the wife of Siva, in her great affection for them, embraced the infants so closely that they became one, but preserved six faces, twelve arms, feet, eyes, &c. Kartikeya became the victor of giants and the leader of the armies of the gods. He is represented as riding a peacock. In southern India he is known as Subramanya.
KARUN, an important river of Persia. Its head-waters are in the mountain cluster known since at least the 14th century as Zardeh Kuh (13,000 ft.) and situated in the Bakhtiari country about 115 m. W. of Isfahan. In its upper course until it reaches Shushter it is called Ab i Kurang (also Kurand and Kuran), and in the Bundahish, an old cosmographical work in Pahlavi, it is named Kharāē.[1] From the junction of the two principal sources in the Zardeh Kuh at an altitude of about 8000 ft., the Ab i Kurang is a powerful stream, full, deep and flowing with great velocity for most of its upper course between precipices varying in height from 1000 to 3000 ft. The steepness and height of its banks make it in general useless for irrigation purposes. From its principal sources to Shushter the distance as the crow flies is only about 75 m., but the course of the river is so tortuous that it travels 250 m. before it reaches that city. Besides being fed on its journey through the Bakhtiari country by many mountain-side streams, fresh-water and salt, it receives various tributaries, the most important being the Ab i Bazuft from the right and the Ab i Barz from the left. At Shushter it divides into two branches, one the “Gerger,” an artificial channel cut in olden times and flowing east of the city, the other the “Shutait” flowing west. These two branches, which are navigable to within a few miles below Shushter, unite after a run of about 50 m. at Band i Kir, 24 m. S. of Shushter, and there also take up the Ab i Diz (river of Dizful). From Band i Kir to a point two miles above Muhamrah the river is called Karun (Rio Carom of the Portuguese writers of the 16th and 17th centuries) and is navigable all the way with the exception of about two miles at Ahvaz, where a series of cliffs and rocky shelves cross the river and cause rapids. Between Ahvaz and Band i Kir (46 m. by river, 24 m. by road) the river has an average depth of about 20 ft., but below Ahvaz down to a few miles above Muhamrah it is in places very shallow, and vessels with a draught exceeding 3 ft. are liable to ground. About 12 m. above Muhamrah and branching off to the left is a choked-up river bed called the “blind Karun,” by which the Karun found its way to the sea in former days. Ten miles farther a part of the river branches off to the left and due S. by a channel called Bahmashir (from Bahman-Ardashir, the name of the district in the early middle ages) which is navigable to the sea for vessels of little draught. The principal river, here about a quarter of a mile broad and 20 to 30 ft. deep, now flows west, and after passing Muhamrah enters into the Shatt el Arab about 20 m. below Basra. This part of the river, from the Bahmashir to the Shatt, is a little over three miles in length and, as its name, Hafar (“dug”) implies, an artificial channel. It was dug c. A.D. 980 by Azud ed-Dowleh to facilitate communication by water between Basra and Ahvaz, as related by the Arab geographer Mukaddasi A.D. 986. The total length of the river is 460 to 470 m. while the distance from the sources to its junction with the Shatt el Arab is only 160 m. as the crow flies. The Karun up to Ahvaz was opened to international navigation on the 30th of October 1888, and Messrs Lynch of London established a fortnightly steamer service on it immediately after.
To increase the water supply of Isfahan Shah Tahmasp I. (1524-1576) and some of his successors, notably Shah Abbas I. (1587-1629), undertook some works for diverting the Kurang into a valley which drains into the Zayendeh-rud, the river of Isfahan, by tunnelling, or cutting through a narrow rocky ridge separating the two river systems. The result of many years’ work, a cleft 300 yds. long, 15 broad and 18 deep, cut into the rock, probably amounting to no more than one-twentieth of the necessary work, can be seen at the junction of the two principal sources of the Kurang.
On the upper Karun see Mrs Bishop, Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan (London, 1891); Lord Curzon, Persia and the Persian Question (London, 1892); Lieut.-Colonel H. A. Sawyer, “The Bakhtiari Mountains and Upper Elam,” Geog. Journal (Dec. 1894).
(A. H.-S.)