NOTES AND COMMENTS. 



Newspaper Science. 



Some of our British daily newspapers occasionally recognise the 

 fact that scientific news may be included among the topics of current 

 interest. This is satisfactory. But general articles by journalists on 

 matters relating to science are capable of doing either good or harm; 

 and we fear the leading article on " Young Collectors," published in 

 the Daily News of February 6, falls within the latter category. It is 

 calculated to deter parents from encouraging scientific pursuits, as 

 the following extracts will show : — 



" Boys will go collecting things — it is difficult to say why. Indeed, it is not easy to 

 explain why anybody collects anything. Probably the pleasure consists — first, in 

 having what other collectors have not ; and, secondly, in the passion for perfection 



and the enjoyment of the chase The things which people will collect, 



judging from the list of Manuals for the Young, are numerous, nor do they all 

 excite a well-regulated cupidity. Butterflies, beetles, and moths we could do without, 

 but London is a great place for moths, and the young collector, with the aid of sugar, 

 may even in London pick up some moths, and a little knowledge of natural history. 

 For fungi it is quite vain to pretend any enthusiasm. . . Fossils are heavy, but 



harmless, and there are some who consider marine shells decorative objects ; among 



these amateurs conspicuous are the keepers of lodging houses There is 



probably no great harm in amassing a collection of diatoms, if they do not smell 

 disagreeably, but boys were more in the habit of collecting dormice in the years 

 that were. We suspect diatoms, as they appear to live in ponds with algae and the 

 like. . . . People should be very careful how they put these things into the 

 heads of boys." 



The general tone of this article is unfortunate, to say the least, for 

 science owes much to collectors. Many distinguished naturalists 

 laid the foundations of their knowledge upon the collections they made 

 in the days of their youth. 



Central Asian Exploration. 



At a meeting of the Royal Geographical Society held on 

 February 8th, Captain F. E. Younghusband gave an interesting 

 account of his two adventurous journeys to the Pamirs — the so-called 

 roof of the world — lying to the northward of Gilgit, and westward 

 of Turkestan. The first of these journeys was commenced in July, 

 1889, when the traveller, with an escort of five Goorkhas, left the 

 British station of Abbotabad, in Hazara, to make his way to Leh, 

 the capital of Ladak. From Leh the party proceeded northwards 

 by the now well-known route across the Karakoram to Shahidula, 

 in Turkestan, from which point their exploration may be said to have 

 commenced. From Shahidula the route lay in a north-westerly 

 direction, their object being first to reach the Pamirs, and thence to 

 turn southwards and reach Hunza, in Yaghistan, to the north-east of 

 Gilgit, by crossing the great Mustagh range. A full description of 

 the route to the Tagh-dum-bash Pamir, by way of the Khal Khuskun 

 Valley, and especially of the enormous and deeply crevassed glaciers, 



