GEOGRAPHICAL EXPLORATIONS OF 1861. 



333 



gonia, sailed from England in June, 1861, in 

 the little schooner Intrepid of 45 tons, for the 

 ait-aits of Bellot, intending to explore King 

 William's Land and seek for some traces or 

 some last relics of the unfortunate companions 

 of Sir John Franklin. 



The Swedish polar expedition, under the di- 

 rection of Prof. Torell, equipped on a magnifi- 

 cent scale by the Swedish Government and 

 Swedish noblemen, and composed of eminent 

 Swedish and Danish naturalists, and of students 

 from the Swedish universities, sailed from 

 Tromsoe in Xorway, May 9, 1861, and reached 

 a bay on the north of the island of Spitzbergen, 

 but -were unable to proceed further. The ships 

 were blockaded by the ice pack, and an at- 

 tempt to proceed by sledges soon brought them 

 to an open sea. They made a careful survey 

 of that portion of the island which they were 

 able to visit, but could not attain the other pro- 

 posed objects of the expedition the penetration 

 of the Arctic Sea to the north and northeast, 

 and the measuring an arc of the meridian. 



The Governments of Great Britain, France, 

 Belgium, Holland, Sweden, Russia, and Spain 

 have for many years been engaged in careful 

 topographical surveys of their respective coun- 

 tries ; that of Belgium is now complete and 

 those of England, France, and Russia nearly so, 

 and the English Government has proposed to 

 connect its triangulation with that of France 

 and Belgium, and being thus able to command 

 the measurement of an arc of parallel extend- 

 ing from the western point of Ireland to the 

 Ural Mountains, to determine mathematically 

 the form of the earth ; and taking advantage of 

 the opportunity, a commission has been ap- 

 pointed to act in concert with similar commis- 

 sions from France and Russia, to fix upon a 

 single meridional line to be substituted for 

 the three, Greenwich, Paris, and St. Petersburg, 

 now in use in those countries respectively, and 

 thus harmonize the longitude of all European 

 maps. 



During the year, Russia has sent out several 

 geographical commissions ; one of these was 

 fitted out for the purpose of exploring the isth- 

 mus between the Caspian and Black seas, for 

 the double purpose of determining the feasibil- 

 ity of a ship canal between the two seas, aided 

 by the river Manytch, and of ascertaining the 

 possibility of colonizing the valley of the Ma- 

 nytch. The report of this commission, which 

 was composed of Messrs. Kostenkoff, Barbet de 

 Marny, Krijine, and other eminent scientific 

 men, was entirely unfavorable. They demon- 

 strate that the bed of the Manytch is dry in 

 summer, and that the soil is so full of saline 

 and alkaline matters as to be hopelessly sterile. 



A second commission has been sent to ex- 

 plore the present condition of the sea of Azof, 

 and to report upon the best means of remedy- 

 ing the gradual filling up of its basin. They 

 report that within 32 years its depth has de- 

 creased 11 feet, and that there is serious reason 

 to fear that it may yet become a vast marsh. 



It is difficult to find a remedy for this trans- 

 formation. 



The Russian Government, which has within 

 the past four years been making large acces- 

 sions to her territory in Turkistan, and has 

 made a treaty with the khan of Khiva, by .which 

 that khanat becomes virtually a Russian de- 

 pendency, has been exploring that region of 

 Central Asia lytherto so little known. M. Ku- 

 lewein, an atta'ch6 of the Russian General Igna- 

 tieff, has just presented to the Russian Geo- 

 graphical Society a narrative of his explorations 

 across the steppe of Orenburg, along the west 

 bank of the Sea of Aral as far as to the lake of 

 Aiboughir, of his survey of that lake, his tour 

 over the promontory of Onega, and his naviga- 

 tion of the Amoo-Daria (the Ancient Oxus) for 

 18 days in a native vessel from Koongrad to 

 Khiva. He reports the Amoo-Daria, which, 

 in Strabo's tune discharged its waters into the 

 Caspian Sea, but for the last 600 years at least 

 has debouched into the Sea of Aral, as likely to 

 return to its old channel an event which would 

 revolutionize the trade between Europe and 

 Asia. 



The sources of the Amoo-Daria, and the vast 

 table-land of Pamir occupying the western 

 slopes of the lofty Bolor-Tag range, have been 

 within historical times an almost unknown re- 

 gion ; even Ritter and Humboldt, with their 

 extended research, were unable to obtain any 

 thing more than a very general description of 

 them, and this derived more from the inferences 

 drawn from the structure of adjacent countries 

 than from any results of actual observation. 

 The races which inhabit them are so savage 

 and fierce, that the traveller who visits them 

 can hardly hope to escape with life. 



M. Veniukoff, a member of the Russian Geo- 

 graphical Society, in the early part of last year, 

 discovered a manuscript narrative by an un- 

 known German traveller, which. had hitherto 

 lain in the topographical bureau of the Minister 

 of War. unnoticed, giving a full and interesting 

 account of an exploring tour made in 1806 over 

 this very district. This traveller had, it seems, 

 traversed the whole of northern Cashmere, as 

 far as Kashgar; had passed down the Bolor 

 River ; and visited Badakshan, Wokhan, Kho- 

 khan, and other places of Chinese Turkistan. 

 M. Veniukoff has compared this manuscript 

 with a Chinese itinerary recently obtained and 

 translated by Klaproth, and from the two has 

 been able to deduce with great accuracy the 

 position of the mountain lakes of Kari-kol, 

 Sarik-kol, and Rian-kol ; has traced the course 

 of the Bolor, Douvand and Sharood rivers ; has 

 identified the last as the source of the Amoo- 

 Daria, and has attained to a tolerably accurate 

 knowledge of the mountains and plateau of 

 Pamir. 



Another Russian geographer, M. Golubeff, 

 returned during the year 1861 from Soongaria, 

 and the eastern portion of the Chinese empire, 

 and has contributed to the transactions of the 

 Russian Geographical Society a map of that 



