1892.] Address. 79 



164 feet below the level of the sea, with an approximate orror of 

 ± 82 feet. To connect this point with a series of levels, to found a meteo- 

 rological station there, and to take pendulum observations, would bo 

 objects of the highest scientific interest ; and Major- General von Tillo 

 proposes to visit the spot and investigate this remarkable depression, 

 which was observed by Colonel Pievtsoff as well as the brothers Grum- 

 Grjimailo. Another point of interest, as reported in the above account 

 of these travels, is the existence of Uighur ruins at Syngym, 

 an oasis in the Tinge-tau mountains, where it is said that gold and 

 silver things, copper vessels and censers, &c, are found ; also of Uighur 

 writings, which are frequently found with grains of wheat in a particu- 

 lar kind of earthenware vessels ; as well as leaflets with inscriptions 

 on them, enclosed in horn and wooden boxes, but so brittle that they often 

 fall to pieces on being handled. These last seem to be specially in- 

 teresting in connection with the birch-bark MSS. found by Lieut. Bower. 



The same account gives notes on the large Natural History collec- 

 tions formed by the brothers, amounting to about 13,000 specimens, 

 which are now being worked out, the Russian Government having voted 

 a sum of 24,000 roubles for publishing the work of Gromchevski, 

 Pievtsoff and Grum-Grjimailo. 



Further accounts of the explorations in the neighbourhood of the 

 Astyn Tagh Mountains, made by Colonel Pievtzoff's expedition, have 

 been published. The expedition returned to Russia last March, having 

 made a topographical survey of 5,000 miles, and 50 determinations of 

 geographical positions, besides magnetic and other observations. They 

 have also gathered vast geological, botanical and zoological collections, 

 about 40 camel loads. 



From a paper read before the Geographical Society of Berlin by 

 Herr L. Conradt, who accompanied Gromchevski as naturalist, it would 

 appear that Chinese Eastern Turkistan, a region about 320,000 square 

 miles in extent, is really a desert, except about the river system of the 

 Tarim, where there are cultivated oases. The tyrannous government of 

 the Chinese is likely in case of a revolution to give way to the Russian 

 dominion, which is popular among the Muhammadans of Central Asia. 



Russian activity in Central Asia has been sustained, and further 

 advances have been made. Under the leadership of Capt. Bachewski, an 

 expedition left Samarkand in May, with the object of exploring routes in 

 the Pamir and the passes over the Hindu Kush into Kafiristan, supple- 

 menting Gromchevski's work. This party claimed the Pamirs as 

 Russian territory and warned off our English explorers. 



M. Katanoff was exploring in the Tian Shan, principally in the 

 interests of ethnography, and was to spend the autumn in Turfan and 

 the winter in Kuldja. 



