90 



NA TURE 



[November 26, 189] 



made from the 1874, and the remaining 446 from the 1882 transit. 

 Taking each series of measurements of each transit separately, 

 and applying the corrections of Leverrier's tables, 



Transit of 1874 Dec. 8 

 1882 Dec. 6 



Ao = + 469 A5 = + 2-30 

 4-9'i3 + l'99 



he obtains the following values for the parallax- 

 Transit of 1874 TT = 8-873 

 1882 ir = 8-883 

 Both the above numbers are subject to the mean errors ±o"'o62 

 and ± o""037 respectively, and are computed in the first case 

 from 307, and in the second from 444 measurements. 



By taking now the two series together, and finding the most 

 probable number, he obtains the following result subject to the 

 two adjoined errors — 



T =-. 8-880 



Mean error — ± 0*032 

 Probable error — ± o'022 



A comparison of the above results with those of other ob- 

 servers, taking the transits of 1874 and 1882, may be gathered 

 from the following list — 



Transit 1874. Transit 1882. 



Photometric Observations. — The Publications of the 

 Potsdam Astro- Physical Observatory, No. 27, contains a series 

 of photometric measurements made by Dr. Miiller at a station 

 on the Santis, situated 2500 metres above sea-level, with a 

 Zollner's photometer. The observations extend over two 

 months, and they show that the form of the curve of extinction 

 from the zenith to a point very near the horizon is satisfactorily 

 represented by Laplace's Theory. But a comparison of the 

 curves calculated separately for the various days of observation 

 shows considerable differences, which approach and even exceed 

 0-4 of a magnitude near the horizon. The superiority of the 

 Santis station over Potsdam as regards conditions of atmospheric 

 transparency is very striking. For a star in passing from the 

 zenith to an altitude of about 2° has its light diminished nearly by a 

 whole magnitude more in the plain than on the top of the 

 mountain. From the observations, according to Laplace's 

 Theory, .the loss of light produced by the atmosphere in the 

 zenith at Santis is about 12 per cent. ; or, in other words, a star 

 viewed from a point above the atmosphere would appear brighter 

 by about 0-14 of a magnitude. Since the corresponding value 

 for Potsdam is 0-2 magnitude, it follows that the absorption 

 produced by a stratum of atmosphere between sea-level and a 

 height of 2500 metres amounts to 0-06 magnitude. Before 

 this value, however, can be accepted as definite, simultaneous 

 observations of stellar magnitudes must be made at stations 

 lying closer together than the two between which the comparison 

 is instituted. 



THE PAMIRS. 



A T the meeting of the Royal Geographical Society on 

 -^"^ Monday the paper read was on a recent journey across the 

 Pamir by Mr. and Mrs. Littledale. In introducing the paper, 

 Mr. Douglas Freshfield made some remarks on the subject 

 generally. 



The Pamir or Pamirs (Mr. Freshfield said)— for Pamir is a 

 generic term, the different strips of tableland are distinguished 

 by separate names— is a vast tableland averaging 12,000 feet in 

 height and 200 miles in length by 120 to 150 miles in breadth, 

 ringed by a rough horseshoe of mountain ranges, and inter- 

 sected by snowy ridges and shallow trenches that deepen west- 

 wards, where the streams of the Oxus descend towards Bokhara. 

 The numerous photographs taken by Mr. Littledale exhibit a 

 characteristic type of landscape : — tent-shaped, glacier-coated 

 ridges, bare heights naked of verdure and shorn of forests by 



the bitter winds and frosts, desolate bituminous lakes ; a region 

 where for the most part there is neither fuel nor fodder ; an 

 Engadine of Asia, with nine months winter and three months 

 cold weather ; the home of the wild sheep, the summer haunt 

 of a few wandering shepherds ; nomads' land if not no man's 

 land. Long ago Marco Polo described it well. That is the 

 scene of Mr. and Mrs. Littledale's adventures ; that is the 

 region where the emissaries of three nations are now setting up 

 rival claims. "The half-way house to heaven" is a Chinese 

 appellation for the Pamirs. "Crelum ipsum petimus stultitia " 

 our and the Russian soldiers and diplomats may now almost say 

 of one another. For the tales of summer pastures of extra- 

 ordinary richness, told to Marco Polo and repeated to Mr. 

 Littledale, refer, so far as they are true at all, only to isolated 

 oases. The country in question cannot feed the caravans that 

 cross it ; far less could it sustain the baggage animals of an 

 army on the march. No one in his senses could consider that 

 in itself the Pamir is a desirable acquisition. Any value it may 

 have is in relation to adjoining lands. From the north there is 

 comparatively easy access to it from Russian Turkistan. From 

 the east the Chinese and their subjects climb up the long ascent 

 from the Khanates, and pass through easy gaps in the encircling 

 horseshoe of mountains on to the portions of the tableland they 

 claim. From the south, a route which seems from Mr. Little- 

 dale's experience to be anything but a military route, leads over 

 glaciers, passes, and through well-nigh impassable gorges into 

 Gassin and Chitral, and so to Kashmir. To the south-west 

 easier routes, little known or little described as yet, lead into 

 the wild regions of Kaffiristan and Afghanistan. We do not 

 here deal with politics, but we do deal with the geographical 

 and cartographical facts on a knowledge of which politics and 

 policy ought to be — but unfortunately for our country have not 

 always been — based. Certain portions of the Pamir have been 

 more or less closely attached to Afghanistan. The Amir lays 

 claim to Wakhan, Chignan, and Roshan, tracts stretching along 

 the sources of the Oxus. It is obvious that England will claim 

 an interest in these, but probably, owing to the deficiencies in 

 exact knowledge of the geographers of Cabul, we have not as 

 yet formulated publicly our claims. 



In 1873 the Russian Government, at the time of their advance 

 to Khiva, undertook never to pass the Oxus. Shortly after- 

 wards. Sir Henry Rawlinson argued with great force that the 

 Murgabi, the stream that cuts the Pamirs in two, and not the 

 Pandja, which flows along their southern skirts, was the true 

 and proper source of the Oxus. Seven years ago, in the nego- 

 tiations which followed the Penjdeh incident, the negotiators 

 deliberately left this portion of the frontier out of their cal- 

 culations. 



Why, undeterred by the experiences of which that entertain- 

 ing traveller and Anglophobe, M. Bonvalot, had lately given so 

 alarming a picture, should an Englishman and his wife cross this 

 desert ? Mr. and Mrs. Littledale are ea'^er in the pursuit of 

 rare game. They were old travellers ; they had sojourned in 

 the forest wildernesses of the western Caucasus ; they had, on 

 a previous occasion, penetrated Central Asia. A pair of horns 

 were to them what a bit of rock from a maiden peak is to 

 others. 



And lastly, why did Mr. and Mrs. Littledale go from north 

 to south? Why did they, being English, make Russian territory 

 their starting-point ? Thereby hangs a tale. Because our 

 Anglo-Indian Government prohibits all independent travel in 

 its trans frontier lands. Something may be said for this course, 

 but it does not stop there. It also gags its own ofiicial explorers. 

 It carries yearly farther and farther the policy deprecated by 

 Sir H. Rawlinson in this hall, when he said : " Russia deserves 

 all honour for her services to geographical science in Asia. I 

 only wish I could say as much for ourselves as regards our own 

 frontiers." 



No one, least of all the Council of this Society, would ask for 

 the publication of any tactical information our military authori- 

 ties desired to withhold. But the military authorities go along 

 with us in asking for an intelligent censorship in place of a 

 wholesale system of suppression of the mass of knowledge, 

 general and scientific, acquired by the servants of the State in 

 our frontier and transfrontier lands. We believe, and the 

 Council have represented to H.M. Government, that the present 

 practice is not in accordance with the existing official rules, that 

 it was intended and has been ordered that expurgated copies of 

 all official reports of public interest should be given to the 

 public. They hope that the departments concerned will before 



NO. II 52, VOL. 45] 



