The landscape around them was bleak, almost as devoid of plant life as the white sands had been.
But its waters become absorbed in the sands of the desert steppes before they reach the Caspian.
You find thus in the very sands an anticipation of the vegetable leaf.
All the men save a small crew rowed to the beach of sugary sands.
It is marked by grey clays and sands, lignitic fossiliferous clays, beds of lignite or brown coal, sometimes 8 ft.