THE PRESENT STANDPOINT OF GEOGRAPHY. 405 



instance, whether the Yarkand River, which rises in tliose ranges, flows 

 some distance westward before it enters the plain, or whether it breaks 

 tbrongh the mountains 30 or 40 miles to the east and proceeds direct 

 to Yarkand. A fairly accurate survey of the northern slopes of the 

 Himalayan lianges and the adjoining portions of eastern Turkistan is 

 much needed, although a great deal of good work has quite recently been 

 executed in the loftier parts of those ranges. 



The recent journey of Mr. Conway among the glaciers and higher 

 passes of the Mustagh Himalayas is an example of what the courage 

 and skill of an able private explorer may do under the most difficult 

 circumstances. Starting from Plnnza and Nagar, he surveyed a con- 

 siderable area of country at great altitudes, and he has been able to 

 correct and add to the survey of this region, which was executed by 

 Col. Godwin Austen. Fellows of the society have already listened to 

 Mr. Conway's graphic narratives, and before long his })ainstaking and 

 minutely accurate map of one of the most remarkable portions of the 

 Himalayan glacier region will be in your hands. In the same region, 

 but still farther north, officers of the Indian Survey are pushing their 

 observations, and we may hope in due time to be furnished with the 

 results. Another surveyor, Mr. Senior, has done much valuable work 

 under circumstances of unusual difficulty, among the higher ranges of 

 Kula and Lahaul. His merits have been recognized by our 'council, 

 and he has been awarded our Murchison Grant. 



^Farther to the east, along the Himalayan chains, the kingdom of 

 Nepal covers a tract of country about 500 miles long and 100 miles 

 broad, lying between the crests of the mountains and the British fron 

 tier. This is still almost a blank upon our maps. Europeans, except 

 a few officers at the capital, are debarred by treaty from entering x»repal 

 so that the country is very imperfectly known. The passes from ]S^e]>al 

 into Tibet have a special interest for us, because the only great army 

 that has invaded India since the commencement of British rule in 

 Beiigal marched through one of them, the Kirong Pass, and so 

 descended from the valley of the Tsanpo into Nepal. It has never, I 

 believe, been visited by any European. 



Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, has never been visited by any English- 

 man since the days of Manning. There is also a vast and wholly unex- 

 plored region of Tibet on the northwest, between the parallels of 34° 

 and 36° and the meridians of 82° and 90°. It lies between the explo- 

 rations of Capt. Bower on the south side and those of Col. Pevtsof and 

 M. Bogdanovich on the north. In southwest Tibet there are also great 

 belts of unknown country between the routes of Pundit Nain Sing from 

 Ladak to Lhasa, and his route along the upper course of the Yaro- 

 Tsanpo River; also between that river and the crests of the Himalayan 

 ranges, which form the border of Western Nepal. The course of the 

 Tsanpo and the adjoining country on both banks are well known as far 

 as the meridian of 93°, and fairly well, but with some uncertainty, to 



