He commanded the advanced guard of General Lomakine's column from Kinderly Bay, in the Caspian, to join General Verefkin, from Orenburg, in the expedition to Khiva in 1874, and, after great suffering on the desert march, took a prominent part in the capture of the Khivan capital.
The former connexion between the Caspian and Aral by means of the gulf now represented by the Sary Kamish depression seems to be admitted by Russian scientists, nor would there appear to be much doubt about the connexion between the Khivan oasis and the northern extremity of the Sary Kamish.
At the same time another branch of the same gulf protruded northwards in the direction of the Aral, probably as far as the Sary Kamish depression, which lies to the west of the Khivan delta of the Oxus, separated from it by wide beds of loess, clays and gravel, covering rocks of an unknown age.