562 SCIENTIFIC KECOKD FOR 1885. 



Hari Kud, with jiermission to proceed as far as Daulatyar. A native 

 surveyor has started southward across the many apparently parallel 

 ranges (quite unlike anything shown at present on our maps) between 

 the Upper Hari-Rud and Gaur, or Zarni. Another native surveyor has 

 started for the Upper Mnrghab and Ferozkohi country to survey the 

 direct routes to Mannana from Obeh, across the Band-i-Turkestan. 



Lieut. Col. H. C. B. Tanner, S. C, deputy-superintendent of the survey 

 of India, in charge of Darjeeling and Nepaul boundary surveys, makes 

 some exceedingly interesting communications on the Himalayan snow 

 peaks. 



An account of M. Potanin's journey from Peking to Lang-tcheou, in 

 1884, was given in the Eussian Izvestia. The country between the Yel- 

 low Eiver and Boro-balgasun is covered with sand, rarely moving sand, 

 but barkhans fortified by a growth of shiapyJc, a species of Artemesia, 

 with bushes of cavagana in the cavities between. Water is plentiful. 

 The dry grounds between the sands are covered with steppe vegeta- 

 tion, and sarrazin, millet, and hemp are grown there. The Orthous in- 

 habit this region. Boro-balgasun was once a town, but now contains only 

 a few huts within its ruined walls. At Edjin-Khoro, on the Tchamb- 

 Kak River, are two tents, in which the bones of Zenghis Khau are said 

 to be preserved. After leaving Boro-balgasun, the expedition visited 

 the salt lake Baga-Shikye and passed over an almost uninhabited re- 

 gion, with ruins of Mussulman villages, destroyed when the last insur- 

 rection was put down. Lin-tcheou, on the Hoang-ho, is surrounded by 

 fruit gardens, and for 50 miles south of it numerous villages extend 

 along a canal which runs parallel to the Hoang-ho. This richness is of 

 recent origin, for the whole region bears traces of the desolation wrought 

 by the Chinese after the suppression of the insurrection of which the 

 town of Tsin-tsipou was the center. South of this town M. Potanin left 

 the Hoang-ho and crossed the series of flat ridges, which rise from 6,000 

 to 7,000 feet above the sea, and are covered with loess to a thickness of 

 200 to 300 feet. The sandstone of these hills contains some beds of 

 salt. The loess covers the whole country from Ping-yang-sia to Lang- 

 tcheou, which is a great city, picturesquely built on the right bank of 

 the Hoang-ho, at the foot of a mountain. The population is of Turkish 

 origin, and although it has assumed Chinese customs, it keeps its Mus- 

 sulman religion. The latest news from this expedition was dated San- 

 chuan, January 25, 1885. It had gone up the Hoang-ho and event- 

 ually reached the confluence of the Tchitai with the Yellow Eiver. M. 

 Berezovsky had left the expedition and taken another route, via Hoy- 

 syan. He proposes to join MM. Potanin and Skasi on their way to the 

 south. 



Colonel Prejevalsky has discovered three peaks, each over 20,000 feet 

 high, in the middle range of the Kuen-lun. He has given them the 

 names of Muscovite, Columbus, and Enigmatical. The most elevated 

 point of the first named is Mount Kremlin ; of the second Mount Djinri; 



