38 ADDRESS TO THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION, 1881. 



pletely to our knowledge. Eastern Turkestan has been 

 visited, and trained native explorers have penetrated to 

 the remotest fountains of the Oxus, and the wild 

 plateaux of Tibet. Over the northern half of the 

 Asiatic Continent the Russians have displayed great 

 activity. They have traversed the wild steppes and 

 deserts of what on old atlases was called Independent 

 Tartary, have surveyed the courses of the Jaxartes, the 

 Oxus, and the Amur, and have navigated the Caspian 

 and the Sea of Aral. They have pushed their scientific 

 investigations into the Pamir and Eastern Turkestan, 

 until at last the British and Russian surveys have been 

 connected.' 



Again, fifty years ago the vast central regions of 

 Africa were almost a blank upon our best maps. The 

 rudely drawn lakes and rivers in maps of a more ancient 

 date had become discredited. These maps did not agree 

 among themselves, the evidence upon which they were 

 laid down could not be found, they were in many 

 respects highly improbable, and they seemed incon- 

 sistent with what had then been ascertained concerning 

 the Niger and the Blue and White Niles. At the date 

 of which I speak, the Sahara had been crossed by 

 English travellers from the shores of the Mediterranean ; 

 but the southern desert still formed a bar to travellers 

 from the Cape, while the accounts of traders, and others 

 who alone had entered the country from the eastern and 

 western coasts were considered to form an insufficient 

 basis for a map. 



Since that time the successful crossing of the 

 Kalahari desert to Lake Ngami has been the prelude to 

 an era of African discovery. Livingstone explored 



