January 29, 1920] 



NATURE 



571 



For some twelve years the native explorers of 

 the Indian Survey had the field to themselves, and 

 it may safely be said that no Asiatic geographers 

 of the past, not even the Arab adventurers of the 

 Middle Ages, or the Chinese pilgrims of yet 

 earlier times in search of such evidences of their 

 Buddhist faith as were to be found on the fron- 

 tiers and plains of India, ever established such 

 a remarkable record of geographical accomplish- 

 ment as did these Lamas and Pandits of Indian 

 Survey history in so short a time. Their success 

 was due primarily to the fact that they were 

 well selected for the special line of explora- 

 tion which they were expected to follow. Then 

 they were thoroughly well trained in the first 

 elements of geographical reconnaissance by 

 Indian Survey officers. 



As a rule their methods were simple, for they 

 included no more than the first principles of 

 traversing on bearings taken by the prismatic 

 compass, distances being measured by pacing, 

 and occasional most valuable checks being derived 

 from latitude observations with the sextant. This 

 invohed the use of small instruments which were 

 concealed either in their clothes or in false 

 bottoms to their boxes. A rosary was the con- 

 venient means of checking their paces. Con- 

 sidering that many thousands of miles were 

 covered in this way, and that the final re- 

 duction of their voluminous records (concealed 

 usually in the lining of their coats) was most 

 satisfactory, no higher and better evidence of the 

 patience and determination of such men as Nain 

 Singh, Kishen Singh (the A— K of the Survey 

 records), or of Ugfyen Gyatso could be desired. 

 They were frequently engaged for years on the 

 same quest ; they were occasionally caught and 

 enslaved, but almost always managed to save 

 their instruments and their records; and their 

 journeyings carried them across the great plateau 

 to Mongolia and China, and into regions where 

 hitherto no European has followed them. 



With the influx of European explorers, started 

 by the remarkable discoveries of Bower, the later 

 stories of Tibetan exploration became public pro- 

 perty, but it should be noted that many of the 

 most successful of these later white adventurers 

 have employed native explorers to do the spade 

 work of their geographical mapping, and that 

 with the close of the period indicated in this 

 useful volume (which has conveniently brought 

 together information hitherto scattered and 

 rather difficult to retrieve) the work of the 

 native geographer has by no means come to 

 an end. Another and an even greater volume 

 might follow which should show how much our 

 well-known Tibetan travellers owe to the inde- 

 fatigable perseverance and the remarkable skill 

 as topographers of their native assistants. 



Col. Lenox Conyngham's compilation merely 

 brings together the narratives of the earliest 

 native adventurers, and no book of travel that 

 ever was written contains such a wealth of thrill- 

 ing personal incident as underlies the simple (and 

 sometimes prosaic) account of these humble 

 Indian workmen. T. H. H. 



NO. 2622, VOL. 104] 



NOTES. 



A SPECIAL meeting of the Royal Society was held 

 on Thursday, January 22, when the Prince of Wales 

 was admitted a fellow, following election by ballot, 

 which took place on May 22, 1919. This election was 

 in pursuance of a clause in the society's statutes 

 which permits any one of his Majesty's subjects who 

 is a Prince of the Blood Royal to be proposed at one 

 of the ordinary meetings by any fellow, provided such 

 proposal shall have been made at a preceding meet- 

 ing. Under this provision King George V. was elected 

 in 1893 when Duke of York. His Royal Highness 

 was received in the society's vestibule by Sir Joseph 

 Thomson and the officers and vice-presidents, whence, 

 preceded by the mace-bearer, a procession was formed 

 through the ranks of the fellows to the meeting-room. 

 The Prince occupied a seat on the front bench among 

 the fellows. The senior secretary having announced 

 the attendance, his Royal Highness advanced to the 

 president's table and subscribed his name in the 

 charter book, thereupon taking a seat on the left of 

 the president. An attractive discourse was then given 

 by Prof. W. H. Bragg on methods of detecting sub- 

 marines by sound. Upon its conclusion the Prince- 

 thanked the society for his admission, and assured the 

 fellows of his interest in the advancement of scientific 

 research. 



Disturbances of wireless messages are commonly 

 known to all operators, and are usually regarded as 

 atmospheric effects. Mr. Marconi, however, in a 

 statement published in the Daily Mail of January 27, 

 describes interruptions which occur simultaneously in 

 London and New York, and in which certain long 

 and short signals are repeated more frequently than 

 others, as, for example, the three dots signifying the 

 letter S in the Morse code. In the absence of a 

 physical e.\planation of these regular and simultaneous 

 interruptions, it is perhaps human, and certainly 

 sensational, to suggest that the signals represent 

 attempts of intelligent beings on another planet, or 

 the moon, to communicate with the earth. The Daily 

 Mail, therefore, refers to "recent investigations by 

 Prof. Lowell with his giant telescope " of Martian 

 canals (Prof. Lowell died in 1916), and to Prof. W. H. 

 Pickering, who "has caused extraordinary interest in 

 the United States by recently announcing that he sees 

 signs of life on the moon," though these views have 

 been before the astronomical world for many years, 

 and the phenomena observed admit of other inter- 

 pretations. The interruptions described by Mr. Mar- 

 coni are no more wonderful than the magnetic dis- 

 turbances long registered in magnetic observatories. 

 Such disturbances of the photographic records are 

 often very definite in character, and occur at about 

 the same hour on successive days, while they are also 

 found to occur simultaneously at stations so far apart 

 as Christchurch (N.Z.) and Kew. The magnetic and 

 wireless effects are closely related, but whether they 

 originate in the sun or arise from a common cause 

 operating throughout the solar system has yet to be 

 determined. That they are signals from other worlds 

 is attractive to the imagination, but the hypothesis is 

 more of popular than of scientific interest. 



