362 SCIENTIFIC RECORD FOR 188i. 



this great plateau; but M. Severtsof, who has been engaged in exploring 

 that region, states that the Pamir is not a table-land, and, up to tho 

 height of about 12,000 feet, has no steppe formation. Up to the height 

 of about 14,000 feet the rivers flow in narrow valleys never exceeding 

 about thirteen miles in width. There are no lofty plateaus in the Pamir, 

 the mountains rising 6,000 or 7,000 feet above the level of the valleys, 

 elevations above the sea of 19,000 feet being frequently found, with three 

 mountain groups attaining a height of 25,000 feet. From evidence ob- 

 tained by M. Severtsof, he considers that elevation is continuously and 

 steadily going on. 



M. and Mme. Ujfalvy have accomplished a long jo^irney in Kashmir 

 and Little Thibet, bringing with them an important collection, valuable 

 from a geographical and ethnographical point of view, and which is to 

 be preserved in the Ethnographical Museum of Paris. 



Among the many obligations which geographical knowledge owes 

 to enterprising newspaper correspondents must be reckoned the ac- 

 count given by IMr. E. O'Donovan of the supposed desert of Merv. Mr. 

 O'Donovan, who penetrated into this region from Persia under circum- 

 stances of great peril and hardship, states that so fiir from the country 

 being a desert, the soil is fertile, and only requires that the irrigation 

 works be repaired by dams on the Murghab and Tejend Rivers to be- 

 come productive again. Mr. O'Donovan further states that though the 

 ruins of two cities, one Alexandrine and one Mussulman, can be traced 

 and show evidences of a high degree of civilization, no such city as 

 Merv exists at present. 



Mr. P. M. Lessar. an employ^ of the Russian Government, has been 

 engaged in exploring the country bordering on the southwest portion 

 of the Caspian Sea, and lying between that sea and Herat, in order to 

 ascertain the possibility of constructing a railway from some port on 

 the Caspian toward the frontier of British India. He finds the physi- 

 cal obstacles easily surmountable, and demonstrates that, in the region 

 to be traversed, the Paropamisus, or high range of mountains, which 

 north of Cabul rise to an elevation of 20,000 feet, dwindle as they rang© 

 to the westward to mere hills less than 1,000 feet in height. 



Dr. Albert Regel has, under the auspices of the Imperial Russian 

 Geographical Society, been engaged in the exploration of the region 

 surrounding the headwaters of the Amu Daria River. The year 1881 

 was devoted to the investigation of the Bokharan province of Drwvag ; 

 and a translation of his report of proceedings up to September, 1881, is 

 published in the Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society. 



In carrying a chain of spirit -level observations across the Indian 

 peninsula from Bombay to Madras, by the officers of the grand trigono 

 metrical survey of India, the result seemed to show that the mean sea 

 level is about three feet higher at Madras than at Bombay. After a 

 very careful investigation the surveyor-general has concluded that this 

 anomalous result is due to an accumulation of minute errors in tha 



