286 



NATURE 



[November 12, 1914 



science, there can be no question. In a splendid 

 building- and surrounded with all the appurten- 

 ances of precedent and dignity, months and years 

 are wasted in a game of finding weak points in 

 arguments relating to subjects many of which 

 are of doubtful national importance ; while the 

 scientific elect of the country are crowded in 

 modest apartments to discuss discoveries which 

 it has cost them much time and frequently much 

 money to complete, and for the publication of 

 which they must themselves make provision. It 

 requires the satire of a Swift to describe the dis- 

 parity of support afforded to polemics and natural 

 philosophy by a State that owes most of its 

 modern advance to scientific work. 



There is no doubt that the greatest contribu- 

 tions to knowledge have been made by men who 

 undertook their inquiries into Nature without 

 thought of proximate or ultimate practical appli- 

 cation or pecuniary reward. It is true also that 

 the best kind of scientific investigation cannot be 

 carried on in an atmosphere of commercialism, or 

 where personal profit is the end in view. This, 

 however, does not relieve the nation of the re- 

 sponsibility for seeing that the rare aptitude for 

 original research receives the most generous en- 

 couragement. At present a scientific career is the 

 last into which a man should enter who expects a 

 reasonable reward for his knowledge and indus- 

 try ; for it is the least lucrative of all professions. 

 The reason is that its members do not form a 

 corporate professional body to secure for science 

 the position which it should hold in the thought 

 and affairs of the State ; therefore, administrators 

 and officials generally pay little attention to its 

 claims. Scientific men should see that fuller 

 national recognition is given to their Avork, and 

 the programme in Science Progress will show 

 some of the directions in which they may well 

 effect improvements, so that the world shall 

 recognise "the great principle that of all forms 

 of human effort, those efforts which result directly 

 in discovery, whether in science or in art, are by 

 far the most important efforts for humanity." 



R. A. Gregory. 



EXPLORATIONS ON THE NORTH-EAST 



FRONTIER OF INDIA. 

 \ MONGST the many activities of the Indian 

 XX Survey Department not the least in scientific 

 interest is the series of exploratory surveys which 

 have been carried out on the north-east frontier, 

 to the north and east of Assam, in the wild and 

 mountainous hinterland which lies between Tibet 

 and Burma. The scientific inter-est of these ex- 

 plorations is two-fold, geographical and ethno- 

 graphical. The region dealt with in the report of 

 Colonel Sir Sidney Burrard (Surveyor-General of 

 India) embraces the principal basins of the rivers 

 Mekong, Salween, and Irrawaddy and the 

 Himalayan catchment areas of the four principal 

 feeders of the Brahmaputra, namely, the Lohit 

 (Zayul), the Dibang, the Dihang, and the 

 Sabansiri, and for the sheer physical diflficulties 



NO. 2350, VOL. 94] 



offered to systematic mapping is probably un- 

 matched by any equal area in the world. 



The scantiness of population, denseness ol 

 jungle, altitude of ranges, steep precipices, 

 torrential streams and infernal climate have so 

 far practically barred communication between 

 India and China and between Tibet and Burma. 

 It is here that four survey detachments have been 

 working intermittentl}' from 191 1 to 1914 to assist 

 each other in cracking that old geographical nut 

 which lay enshrined in the mountains which over- 

 hang the course of the Brahmaputra and the 

 sources of the Irrawaddy. W'e have heard of 

 the remarkable exploits of geographers, such as 

 Captain Bailey, who traversed those regions with 

 unexampled success and vindicated the reputation 

 of earlier native explorers, but we have not heard 

 much of the determined efforts of the official 

 pioneers of scientific mapping, whose work fur- 

 nishes the basis of all successful explorations. 



The scientific interest of work accomplished in 

 the field of geography is naturally great and 

 varied, for it is comprised in a large field of 

 28,000 square miles of hitherto unknown and 

 unmapped mountains. Perhaps the chief point 

 which calls for recognition is the discovery of a 

 gigantic snow peak (Namcha Barwa), 25,445 ft. 

 in altitude, far to the east of Kinchinjunga. The 

 discovery of a peak in Assam nearly as high as 

 Nanda Devi (25,645 ft.) "marks an epoch," says 

 Col. Burrard, " in the history of Himalayan ex- 

 plorations," and the further fact that the Brahma- 

 putra cuts its passage across the Himalayas at 

 the base of this mountain gives rise to a curious 

 problem in mountain hydrography ; for it is note- 

 worthy that the Sutlej, the Indus, and the great 

 river of Hunza all cut through main ranges close 

 to the points of supreme elevation of those ranges. 

 Is this only a coincidence, or are we to seek for 

 a reason in the processes of construction of moun- 

 tain chains? 



Another interesting matter is the absence of 

 falls in the Brahmaputra. This is a feature 

 common to most, if not all, of the great Himalayan 

 rivers which descend rapidly from great altitudes 

 to the plains. There are, indeed, magnificent 

 cascades throughout the Himalayas, and a 

 tremendous drop is not uncommon at the point 

 where a tributary joins its parent river, but there 

 are no falls in the main streams. 



As for the ethnographical interest of the regions 

 under review, it is so extensive and embraces such 

 a variety of problems that it is only possible to 

 point out generally that here, if anywhere, are 

 we to find the rnodern representatives of the very 

 oldest of primeval Asiatic races. We are content 

 to generalise under such terms as Tibeto-Burman, 

 or Indo-Chinese, a vast aggregation of tribes- 

 people who differ so widely in their social idiosyn- 

 crasies, and even in anthropological features, 

 that there must almost certainly be amongst them 

 survivals who can help point the way Xo the 

 very beginning of the human alphabet in Asia. 

 All information that can be obtained about them, 

 about their physical conditions, their habitat. 



