June 27, 1859.] ADDITIONAL NOTICES. 387 



the Kussian empire. On the continuous advance of Russia into Central Asia 

 the author quotes Mr. Ferrier, to the effect that, after having descended the 

 Ural River to the Caspian Sea, and reached the mouth of the Embah, the 

 Russians ascended that river to the point at which, turning south, it approaches 

 the Aral Sea. " Here they have established a military colony, and dug v^^ells 

 at short distances in the desert between the Embah and the sea ; they have 

 also placed around these wells settlements of Cossacks, who cultivate the soil 

 in the neighbourhood, so that in a few years an army will be able to obtain 

 sufficient food and forage in all their encampments, and will reach the Aral 

 without serious difficulty. Two other lines of wells have been also dug by 

 the Russians — one on leaving the river Ourloo Irghiz, tending towards the 

 northern end of the Aral Sea ; the other commences from two points, Ming- 

 Kishlak and Dash-Killeh, on the eastern shore of the Caspian, which unite 

 half way in one line thence, laid down in the direction of Khiva." — p. 16. 



Further on he adds, from the Warsaw journal the ' Czar,' of Nov. 30th, 

 1856 : — " The Orenburg corps d'armee has been considerably reinforced. The 

 outposts of this corps extend to the very limits of the country of Turan, upon 

 the rivers Oxua- and Jaxartes ; and the military flotilla of the Lake of Aral, 

 placed under the orders of the same general, is brought by the above-mentioned 

 rivers to the frontiers of India. On another side great activity reigns upon 

 the Caspian Sea and in the army of the Caucasus. Transport vessels, having 

 troops and war materiel on board, pass incessantly between Astrakan and 

 the port of Baku. The new lieutenant-general of the Caucasian provinces, 

 Prince Bariatinski, has received fuller powers than his predecessors. He has 

 lately inspected, on its way to its destination, the flotilla of the Caspian Sea, 

 which has been considerably increased. Meanwhile the Russian Government 

 neglects nothing in replacing the war materiel consumed during the late war, 

 and continues to refill the exhausted magazines." — p. 26. 



And— 



" Without undertaking to decide the large question at issue (the invasion of 

 India by Russia), I shall assume the feasibility of invasion to be established, 

 and merely observe that now more than ever should we be on the watch, for 

 the Russian and Indian dominions are twelve hundred miles nearer to each 

 other than v/hen the invasion of Afghanistan took place." 



11. Esquisse Geographique du Bassin de la Mer d^Aral, ^c. Lue a la Societe 

 de Geographie de Paris, Par M. Eugene Lamansky, Secretaire de 

 la Societe Imperiale Geographique de Eussie. Paris : Martinet. 

 1858. 



From such a source as M. Lamansky we ought to expect the most correct 

 information respecting the subject here treated of, since, as he himself informs 

 us at p. 13 of his pamphlet, " Most of the narratives of the travellers who 

 have recently visited the khanats adjoining the Russian territories have been 

 published by the Geographical Society of St. Petersburg." The author first 

 points out that little or nothing was known of the Sea of Aral in Western 

 Europe down to the commencement of the eighteenth century, when Peter the 

 Great, then a resident in Paris, made known to the Academy of Sciences some 

 important details concerning the hydrography of Central Asia which had pre- 

 viously been acquired by his countrymen. In 1741 Mouravine was sent by 

 the Russian government to survey the shores of the Sea of Aral, of which he 

 subsequently produced a chart ; since which time the extension of colonization 

 from Russia, and multiplied journeys of travellers in that direction, have 



