152 



NATURE 



{Feb. 13, 1890 



camp with his heavy luggage, that the lost party had set out from 

 the Dumala Valley in the Bezingi District, with the hope of 

 climbing Dychtau, 16,880 feet, from the south-east. Karaoul, at 

 the head of the Cherek Valley, was made, therefore, the head- 

 quarters of the search party. They bivouacked under a rock 

 beside the Tutuin Glacier, at a height of 9400 feet. Next morn- 

 ing (July 29) they started at dawn, and forced, not without dif- 

 ficulty, a passage through the monstrous scracs of the Tutuin 

 Glacier. Above them they found a long snowy corridor leading 

 to the base of Dychtau, and to the foot of a gap in its east spur, 

 which they believed Mr. Donkin and his companions had crossed 

 from the Dumala glen on the further side. Nothing was found 

 at the foot of the steep rock wall, 1400 feet high, which pro- 

 tected the pass. The searchers therefore climbed the rocks 

 leading to it, and when 1000 feet above the snow and some 

 400 below the ridge, the traces sought were met with. The 

 leader at the rope's end suddenly stopped short and gasped, 

 "See, here is the sleeping-place." Before our eyes rose a low 

 wall of loose stones built in a semicircle convex to the lower 

 precipice. A crag partially overhung it ; any object dropped 

 over the wall fell 1000 feet on to the snow plain below. The 

 space, some 6 feet square, inside the wall, was filled with un- 

 even snow or ice, from which portions of knapsacks and sleep- 

 ing bags protruded. A black stew-pan, half full of water, in 

 which a metal cup floated, lay against the rock ; a loaded re- 

 volver was hung beside it. It cost more than three hours' hard 

 work to dig out all the objects from the frozen stuff in which 

 they were embedded. Only three could work at once in the 

 narrow space, and Mr. Freshfield and Mr. Woolley went on to 

 the ridge, where they found a small stoneman, but no written 

 record. Some manuscript notes and maps of Mr. Fox's were 

 found in the bivouac, but nothing written after leaving the lower 

 camp. The whole of the cliff and cliff's foot were carefully 

 searched with a strong telescope. Mr. Woolley and his guides 

 twice passed along the cliff's foot on his ascent of Dychtau, and 

 he made certain that the party had not climbed the peak — that 

 the accident therefore had happened on the ascent. After the 

 lecture, Mr. Freshfield showed in the lantern a series of views 

 of the Caucasus, from photographs by Mr. Hermann Woolley 

 and Signor V. Sella. A complete set of Signor Sella's views, 

 embracing eight panoramas and 90 views, was shown in an 

 adjoining room. The panorama from Elbruz shows the whole 

 chain of the Caucasus above a sea of clouds, and is probably 

 the finest mountain photograph yet exhibited. 



The last issue of the Rvestia of the Russian Geographical 

 Society is more than usually interesting, as it contains detailed 

 letters received from the members of the three Russian expedi- 

 tions now engaged in the exploration of Central Asia. The 

 letter of M. Roborovsky, dated August 16, and written in the 

 highlands to the south of Yarkend, contains a most vivid de- 

 scription of the journey from the town Prjevalsk to Yarkend, 

 across the passes of Barskaun and Bedel. M. Roborovsky knows 

 Central Asia well, as he was Prjevalsky's travelling companion 

 during three of his great journeys ; and his descriptions of the 

 country — its orography, climate, and flora — are full of most valu- 

 able information. Another letter is from M. Bogdanovitch, the 

 geologist of the expedition, w'lo joined it at Yarkend, after 

 having crossed the Kashgarian Mountains on another route and 

 explored the Mustagh-ata glaciers. That part of the Pamir 

 border-ridge had already been explored by Stoliczka, but M. 

 Bogdanovitch adds much new information. It appears — as might 

 have been expected from the orography of the region^ — that there 

 is no trace of mountains running north and south on the eastern 

 edge of the great Pamir plateau. The Kashgar Mountains are 

 an upheaval of gneisses, metamorphic slates, and Tertiary 

 deposits, running from norih-west to south-east. The limestones 

 which Stoliczka supposed to be Triassic, proved to be Devonian. 

 The most characteristic fossils of the Upper Devonian (Ahypa 

 reticularis, A. latilinguis, A. aspera, Spirifer Verneuli, and 

 several others) were found together with the corals {Lithodcn- 

 dron), Stromatoporse and Ccrioporm described by Stoliczka. The 

 Tertiary sandstones are broken through (as is often the case in 

 Siberia) by dolerites of volcanic origin, at the very border of the 

 plateau, on its slope turned towards Kashgaria. Another series 

 of letters, the last of which is dated September 23, from the 

 sources of the Aksu, is from Colonel Grombchevsky. The late 

 spring delayed the advance of the expedition, which spent the 

 first part of June in crossing the Alai Mountains. The great 

 Alai Valley of the Pamir could be reached only on June 19, but 

 the Trans- Alai Mountains were buried in snow ; no passage was 



possible, and the explorer was compelled to march to the lower 

 tracts of Karategin. He thence proceeded to Kala-i-khum, a 

 little town situated on the Pendj, at a height of 4500 feet, and 

 enjoying a relatively mild climate. From Kala-i-khum M. 

 Grombchevsky succeeded in reaching the Vantcha river ; but 

 having met there the Afghan troops which were taking possession 

 of the khanates of Shugnan and Rothan, he could not move 

 further south, nor explore the western parts of the Pamir ; so he 

 proposed to continue the exploration of the eastern parts of the 

 Roof of the World. Finally, the two brothers, Grum Grzimailo, 

 who are exploring the Eastern Tian-Shan from Kuldja to 

 Urumtsi, give short news of their progress, and remark that our 

 maps of Eastern Tian-Shan are quite incorrect — a circumstance 

 which might have been guessed from the general orographical 

 structure of Central Asia. The collections of vertebrates and 

 insects which have been gathered by the two explorers are 

 exceedingly rich. 



A PERMANENT Marocco museum is to be established at the 

 head- quarters of the Society of Commercial Geography at 

 Berlin. 



SMOKELESS EXPLOSIVES^ 



H. 



CO far as smokelessness is concerned, no material can surpass 

 "-^ gun cotton pure and simple ; but, even if its rate of combustion 

 in a firearm could be controlled with certainty and uniformity, 

 although only used in very small charges, such as are required 

 for military rifles, its application as a safe and reliable propulsive 

 agent for military and naval use is attended by so many difficul- 

 ties, that the non-success of the numerous attempts, made in 

 the first twenty-five years of its existence, to apply it in this 

 direction, is not surprising. 



Soon after its discovery by Schonbein and Bottger in 1846, 

 endeavours were made to apply gun-cotton wool, rammed into 

 cases, as a charge for small arms, but with disastrous results. 

 Subsequently von Lenk, who made the first practical approach 

 to the regulation of the explosive power of gun-cotton, produced 

 small-arm cartridges by superposing layers of gun -cotton threads, 

 these being closely plaited round a core of wood. Von Lenk's 

 system of regulating the rapidity of burning of gun-cotton, so as 

 to suit it either for gradual or violent action, consists, in fact, in 

 converting coarse or fine, loosely or tightly twisted, threads or 

 rovings of finely carded cotton into the most explosive form of 

 gun-cotton, and of arranging the~e threads or yarns in different 

 ways so as to modify the mechanical condition, i.e. the compact- 

 ness and extent and distribution of enclosed air-spaces, of the 

 mass of gun-cotton composed of them. Thus, small-arm cartridges 

 were composed, as already stated, of compact layers of tightly- 

 plaited, fine gun-cotton thread ; cannon cartridges were made up 

 of coarse, loose gun-cotton yarn wound very compactly upon a 

 core ; charges for shells consisted of very loose cylindrical hollow 

 plaits (like lamp wicks), along which fire flashed almost instan- 

 taneously ; and mining charges were made in the form of a 

 very tightly twisted rope with a hollow core. While the two 

 latter forms of gun-cotton always burned with almost instan- 

 taneous rapidity in open air, and with highly destructive effects 

 if they were strongly confined, the tightly wound or plaited 

 masses burned slowly in air,, and would frequently exert their 

 explosive force so gradually when confined in a firearm as to 

 produce good ballistic results without appreciably destructive 

 effect upon the arm. Occasionally, however, in consequence of 

 some slight unforeseen variation in the compactness of the 

 material, or in the amount and disposition of the air-spaces in 

 the mass, very violent action would be produced, showing that 

 this system of regulating the explosive force of gun-cotton was 

 quite unreliable. 



Misled by the apparently promising nature of the earliest 

 results which von Lenk obtained, the Austrian Government em- 

 barked, in 1862, upon a somewhat extensive application of von 

 Lenk's gun-cotton to small arms, and provided several batteries 

 of field guns for the use of this material. The abandonment of 

 these measures for applying a smokeless explosive to military 

 purposes soon followed upon the attainment of unsatisfactory 

 results, and was hastened by the occurrence of a very destructive 



' Friday Evening Discourse delivered by Sir Frederick Abe!, F R.S., at 

 the Royal Institution of Great Britain, on January 31, 1890. Continued 

 from p. 330. 



