GEOGRAPHIC PROGRESS— KELTIE. 511 



harvest of geography. Only quite recently the age-long problem of 

 the Sanpo-Brahmaputra has been all but solved by the enterprising- 

 son of the society's late secretary, Capt. Eric Bailey, when some 

 thousand or two square miles of the region were surveyed and 

 mapped. Burma and the Malay States are being surveyed ; Siam has 

 been mapped, while similar services are being rendered by France 

 in the territories under her domination. Partly through the enter- 

 prise of individual travellers and partly as a result of Sir Francis 

 Younghusband's expedition, Tibet and Lhasa are no longer the 

 mysteries that they were, and the great Brahmaputra has been 

 traced to its source. Sven Hedin, confiraied the existence and 

 explored the great range beyond the Himalayas conjectured to exist 

 by Trelaunay Saunders as far back as the seventies. 



But I can not attempt to record the work of individual explorers. 

 The High Pamirs have been fully mapped. The Kuen Lun, the 

 Tian Shan, and these other great ranges that lie between Tibet and 

 Turkestan and southern Siberia have been plotted in their main fea- 

 tures. The Gobi, the Takla Makan, and other desert regions have 

 been explored, as has the Tarim basin and the shrinking lakes scat- 

 tered about in the eastward, while many of the marvelous remains 

 of ancient cities and towns have been discovered. The upper courses 

 of the great rivei*s, the Hwang, the Yangtze, and othei-s flowing 

 to the south that rise in the region of the northeast of Tibet have 

 been approximately mapped. Progress has been made in the accurate 

 mapping of China, though much still remains to be done in this 

 interesting land. Japan has been as well mapped as India, Our 

 knowledge of Mongolia and Manchuria have been greatly increased ; 

 this has also been the case with Siberia, through the surveys for the 

 Trans-Siberian Railway which has made it possible to reach Japan 

 and Pekin in about a fortnight from London. Southern Siberia it- 

 self, it has been found, may compare with Canada as a wheat-grow- 

 ing country. In central and northern Siberia much still remains 

 to be done, especially in connection with the hydrography of its great 

 Arctic-flowing rivers. To the ever-progressing conquests of Russia 

 we owe much of our knowledge of Central Asia. Half a century ago 

 her borders scarcely extended beyond the Caspian shores. Little by 

 little her explorers traveled east and north and south, followed by 

 her armies, until she marches with China, and is within measurable 

 distance of India. The ancient Oxus has been traced to its source, 

 though problems remain in connection with its old channels and the 

 fluctuations of the Aral and Caspian, and the conditions of ancient 

 civilization in these regions. We knoAv a good deal more about Per- 

 sia than we did half a century ago, though there is much room here 

 for the investigations of the qualified explorer, especially as to the 

 present and past conditions of the Lut desert. Just half a century 



