June 9, 1887] 



NATURE 



139 



a useful general account of Manchuria and its history. Mr. James 

 calls it the Manitoba of Asia. What with the depletion of the 

 I- )untry for military service and the influx of immigrants from 

 (Jhina, there is little of the old Manchu population left. Nearly 

 all special Manchu custi ms have disappeared, and the language 

 itself is now only spoken in a few remote valleys. Mr. James's 

 1 arty started from Newchang and went north to Mukden. Thence 

 ihey went due east up the beautiful and well-wooded valley of 

 the Hun. This is a particularly rich region, and is being rapidly 

 colonized. The first day Mr. James began to collect he found 

 no less than five Isinds of lilies of the valley, and it was common 

 to see whole hill-sides covered with masses of that flcwer. On 

 account of the flooded state of the rivers, it took them a month 

 ti) reach Mau-erh-shan, the furthest Chinese outpost on the 

 \'alu, at the south foot of the Lao ling Mountains. Thence 

 they struck northwards across the mountains to the junction of 

 the Sungari and Tang-ho, four days march. Here they looked 

 in vain for the snowy peaks of 10,000 to 12,000 feet high, 

 reported by previous writers on Manchuria ; they were assured 

 no such peaks existed in all the region. An official guided them 

 back south-east to the Pei-shan Mountains, a sort of knot in 

 which the Yalu, the Tumen, and the Sungari take their rise. 

 For a long distance the route was over a succession of ranges 

 covered with dense forests, with only at long intervals a hut of 

 a ginseng cultivator, sometimes in the crater of an old volcano. 

 Bogs also were frequent, and gave much trouble. It was the ninth 

 day before they actually began to ascend the mountain itself. 

 The lower slopes are covered with birch and pine, leading to a 

 delightful grassy plateau dotted with trees, and rich open 

 meadows bright with flowers of every imaginable colour. As 

 they approached the needle like peaks of Old White Mountain, 

 the noise of underground streams was frequently heard. The steep 

 sides of the two-peaked upperridgeshines white with disintegrated 

 pumice-stone. On reaching the saddle and looking over the 

 edge, the party found themselves looking down into a crater, at 

 the bottom of which, about 350 feet below, was a beautiful 

 lake, of the deepest and most pellucid blue. The lake was about 

 6 miles in circumference. The height of the mountain is not 

 more than 8000 feet. The party then proceeded north to Kirin 

 and Tsitsikar, through forests and swamps, and, lastly, across 

 Mongolian steppes. Then, proceeding eastwards and south- 

 wards, the country to the east of the previous route was ex- 

 plored, Mr. Jamej learning much by the way of the country and 

 the people. Altogether the journey has been a fruitful one, and 

 shows how much can be done for science by our Indian officials 

 when they have the inclination and are properly trained. 



We have already referred to the remarkable journey of Mr. 

 Carey in Central Asia. Information has now been received 

 from him showing how the second year of his journey was passed- 

 In May 1886 he started from Chaklik, with the object of explor. 

 ing some of ihe northern regions of Tibet. He passed south, 

 across the Altyn and Chinan Mountains, and reached the foot of 

 a high chain, which is probably the true Kuen-lun. Here he 

 had to travel a considerable distance eastwards, through barren 

 and difficult country, until an opening was found leading to the 

 valley of the Ma-chu, the head: ourceof the Yang- tse-kiang. After 

 falling down the river some distance, Mr. Carey had to turn north- 

 wards again, and recross the Kuen-lun. He now found himself 

 in the Tsaidam region, and made an interesting round journey 

 from a place called Golmo and back to the same point, during 

 which he saw a good deal of the nomadic Kalmucks and Mongols 

 whD inhabit the comparatively low valleys of Tsaidam. In the 

 cutumn, Mr. Carey made a second journey across the Kuen-lun, and 

 then, again turning northward, struck straight across the Tsaidam 

 country and the Gobi, to Sachan and Hami, whence he travelled 

 to Urumtsi in the Tian-shan. Thence the party left for 

 Yarkand, whence a start was made on March 7 for Ladak. A 

 great part of the ground traversed by Mr. Carey is new, and he 

 and his assistant, Mr. Dalgleish, are the only Englishmen who 

 have ever travelled through the entire length of Chinese or 

 Eastern Turkestan. 



M. CoNSTANTiN NosiLOFF writes to the Royal Geographical 

 Society of his intention to undertake this year a summer expedi- 

 tion to Nova Zembla. His object will be ( i) to prepare a detailed 

 map of the coasts and interior of the island ; (2) to study the 

 hydrography of the coast, and make observations regarding the 

 movements of the ice in the Kara Sea, and in the straits leading 

 to it ; (3) to make meteorological observations, and to collect 

 zoological and botanical specimtns ; (4) to study the ethno- 

 graphy of the Samo'iedes, 



THE ANNUAL VISITATION OF THE ROYAL 

 OBSERVATORY. 



nr HE Report of the Astronomer- Royal to the Board of 

 Visitors, read at the annual visitation of the Royal 

 Observatory on Saturday last, refers to the period of twelve 

 months from 1886 May 21, to 1887 May 20, and exhibits the 

 state of the Observatory on the last-named day. 



The following are among the points of most general interest : — 



I. Buildings and Grounds. 



Above the extended portion of the upper computing-room, a 

 dome 18 fett in di's.'ineter is to be erected, in which it is pro- 

 posed to mount a Cooke 6- inch equatorial, a photo heliograph 

 tube being attached to the same mounting. The combined 

 instrument will command a complete view of the sun through- 

 out the day — an important consideration, as the work of the 

 present photoheliograph is seriously interfered with by trees and 

 the Lassell dome. The new instrument will be available for 

 occultations, phenomena of Jupiter's satellites, and other occa- 

 sional observations. 



II. Astronomical Observations. 



Transit- Circle. — The regular subjects of observation with the 

 transit-circle are the sun, moon, planets, and fundamental stars, 

 with other stars from a working Catalogue. On the conclusion 

 of the observations for the Ten-Year Catalogue at the end of 

 1886, a new list of some 3000 stars was prepared, to include all 

 the stars in Groombridge's Catalogue and in the Harvard Pho- 

 tometry, which had not been observed at Greenwich since 1867. 

 The Annual Catalogue of stars ob erved in 1886 contains about 

 1665 stars. 



The observations for the Ten- Year Catalogue, epoch 1880, 

 were concluded at the end of 1886, special efforts being made in 

 the latter part of the year to make the Catalogue as far as pos- 

 sible complete to the sixth magnitude inclusive. It is estimated 

 that the Catalogue will contain about 4030 stars, all of which, 

 with very few accidental exceptions, have been observed at least 

 three times in R. A. and N.P. D., the total number of observa- 

 tions being about 40,000 in each element. 



The following statement shows the number of observations 

 made with the transit-circle in the twelve months ending 1887 

 May 20 : — 



Transits, the separate limbs being counted as separ.ate 

 observat'ons ... ... ... ... .. ... 6366 



Determinations of collimation error ... ... ... 304 



Determinations of level error ... ... ... ... 410 



Circle-observations ... ... ... ... ... 5983 



Determinations of nadir point (included in the number 

 of circle-observations... ... ... ... ... 385 



Reflexion-observations of stars (similarly included) ... 602 



About 400 transits (included in the above n.umber) have been 

 ob erved wiih the rever-ion-prism, to determine personality 

 depending on the direction of motion. 



The value found for the colatitude from the observations of 

 1886 is 38'^ 31' 22"'03, differing by o"'l3 from the assumed 

 value : the correction to the tabular obliquity of the ecliptic is 

 -}-o"'65, and the discordance between the results from the sum- 

 mer and winter solstices is -o"'25, indicating that the mean of 

 the observed distances from the Pole to the ecliptic is too great 

 by -t-o"'l2. 



The mean error of the moon's tabular place (computed from 

 Hansen's lunar tables, with Prof. Newcomb's corrections) is 

 -fO'029s. in R. A. and -Fo"'34 in longitude as deduced from 

 ninety-seven meridian-observations in 1886. The mean error in 

 tabular N.P.D. is -o"'66, which would appear to agree with 

 the observations of the sun in indicating that the mean of the 

 observed N.P.D.'s is too great. 



As regards the computations for the Ten- Year Catalogue, a 

 large amount of preparatory work has been done in the applica- 

 tion of corrections to the observations as printed to reduce them 

 to a homogeneous system, and some progress has been made in 

 the formation of the Catal -gue results. The proper motions 

 actually used have been thoroughly revised for every observation 

 in the period 1877-86, and corrections applied where, as occa- 

 sionally happened, different proper motions had been used in 

 the same year. A comparison has been made of the R.A.'s of 

 clock-stars as observed in the last ten years and as computed from 

 the Nine-Year Catalogue, epoch 1872, with Auwers' recently 

 published proper motions, the result of which is to show that the 

 Greenwich observations are better represented by these than by 

 the proper motions in use hitherto, and it has therefore been. 



