Feb. 26, 1SS5J 



NA TURE 



397 



Saturn, March I. — Outer major axis of outer ring = 42 "'3 ; 

 outer minor axis of outer ring = 19" -2 ; southern surface visible. 

 March h. 



6 ... 10 ... Venus at greatest distance from the Sun. 



7 ... 14 ... Mercury in conjunction with and I '3' south 



of Mars. 



GEOGRAPHICAL XOTES 

 It is stated that the King of the Belgians is conferring with 

 M. Martinie, president of the French Geographical Society, 

 on the subject of the formation of an International Geographical 

 Society. 



The last issue of the Izveitia of the Eastern Siberian branch 

 of the Russian Geographical Society contains an interesting 

 paper by M. Doubrof on his journey to Mongolia. The author, 

 accompanied by only one man, has explored the upper course of 

 the Selenga and reached the hitherto unvisited source of this 

 great tributary of Lake Baikal. Unhappily, on his return journey 

 he was prevented from following the exploration of its middle 

 course, the whole journey having been undertaken at so small 

 an expense that the author had sharply to calculate every rouble 

 he was able to expend. The want of barometrical observations 

 on the high tablelands of the Upper Selenga is especially re- 

 gretable, and it is not wholly compensated by a mere topo- 

 graphical description. A table of the times of the freezing of 

 many Siberian rivers and of the breaking of the ice is given 

 in the same fascicule, as also several notes on the Lena 

 meteorological station — already old — and on the Yakutsk 

 province. 



The trade in children within the province of Yakutsk is the 

 subject of an interesting note in the same journal. The 

 Irkutsk Geographical Society had received a note from one of 

 its members, who thus depicted the lot of girls within the pro- 

 vince : In the last century the poorest Yakute who had no means 

 of supporting a large family, took his new-born child in a 

 covering of birch-bark and hung it on a tree in the forest to die 

 from hunger. But the richer Russian merchants began to buy 

 children from their poorer Yakute clients, and so several Russians 

 purchased whole families of servants. This custom induced the 

 Yakute communities to take care of the poorest children, and 

 the community was bound to feed them, under the name of 

 Kumolan children, who spent three days ia the houses of the 

 richer members of the community, two days in those of the 

 moderately wealthy, and one day with the poorest. But of late 

 the custom has arisen of selling children, and especially girls, 

 to Olekminsk merchants, who sell them further to the Yakutes 

 and Tunguses of the Olekminsk district. The parents sell 

 girls for thirty to forty roubles (3/. to 4/.), and in Olekmir they 

 are re-sold for sixty roubles, sometimes eighty roubles. Of 

 course this trade is made under the cover of "taking children 

 to bring up." The Irkutsk Society having taken interest in this 

 communication, it has received information from Yakutsk 

 authorities, and from a well-known student of Yakute life, 

 M. Gorokhoff. It appears from these communications that 

 such trade really exists, the chief impulse to it being given, less 

 by the work a purchased girl might do than by the possibility of 

 receiving for her the kalym, that is, the money paid by men 

 for purchasing a wife. Woman labour is at so low a price that 

 one might have a woman in his household and pay her half a 

 piece of cotton, " for a shirt," per year. But the kalym reaches 

 very high prices. One rich Yakute has recently sold his 

 daughter to a Fungus for 3000 reindeer, and the same price 

 was recently given by a half-idiotic Yakute for the daughter of 

 another Yakute. Middendorff quotes also several instances of 

 a very high kalym paid for girls, its average being about 500 

 roubles. When a Russian priest sold a girl whom he had 

 educated for five sables and ten skins, it was considered as a 

 very low price. Altogether, the kalym is the chief cause of 

 maintaining the trade in girls, together with the gradual 

 impoverishment of the Yakutes. 



_ The Japan Gazette publishes a brief statement from Mr. 

 Gowland, technical adviser to the Imperial Mint at Osaka, on 

 his observations during a recent journey through part of Corea. 

 He spent ten days at Seoul, the capital, and twenty days on the 

 overland route between that place and the port of Fusan. He 

 did not observe any indication of mineral wealth. There were 

 no signs of mines, and nothing beyond doubtful indications of 

 mineral veins in one or two places. There are no mountains I 



exceeding about 4000 feet in highest elevation, and no charac- 

 teristic volcanic cones. The central range was crossed by a pass 

 2300 feet above the sea-level. The forests were of no great 

 extent, but very extensive tracts of cultivated ground, evidently 

 yielding a large surplus production of rice, barley, and beans, 

 were noticeable throughout. There was a marked absence of any 

 manufacturing industry, or of indications that anything beyond 

 food-products receives attention. The traffic on the roads was 

 limited to that between neighbouring districts only, and this 

 was very little. The beasts of burthen employed were rarely 

 horses, frequently bullocks, and chiefly men. There is a total 

 absence of any signs of wealth, and the resources of the country 

 appear to lie solely in agriculture. There is no money, and no 

 prospects of any foreign trade. 



The last number of Le Mouvement Gtographique has some 

 interesting information about the celebrated first letter from- 

 Columbus. All interested in the early history of America know 

 of the different editions of this letter, which was first published 

 in 1493. Bibliographers mention seven of them:(i) one in 

 Rome by Stephen Plannck ; (2) one called the Libri Lennox ; 

 (3) one in Rome by Eucharius Argenteus ; (4) a second by 

 Plannck at Rome ; (5) a Paris copy ; (6) a second Paris copy ; 

 (7) one discovered in Turin by Harisse. To these an eighth has 

 just been added by Ruelens, who discovered the only copy of it 

 known to exist in the Royal Library at Brussels. It is a small 

 pamphlet of four leaves in quarto, of thirty-eight lines, without 

 figures or signature, in semi-Gothic characters. It appears to 

 have been purchased between 1S15 and 1830 by the Royal 

 Library. Its title is : " Epistola Christophori Colom : cui etas 

 nostra multum debet." The title then goes on as follows : "De 

 Insulis Indie surra Gangem puper [for ruper] inventis. Ad quas 

 perquirendas octavo ante mense auspiciis et ere inuictissimi 

 Ferdinandi Hispaniorum Regis missus fuerat : ad magnificum 

 Dominum Raphaelem Sauxis : ejusdem serenissimi Regis Tesau- 

 rarium missa : quam nobilis ac litteratus vir Aliander de Cosco ab 

 Hispano idiomate in latinum convertit : tertio Maii MCCCC. 

 XC. III. Ponlificatus Alexandri Sixti Anno primo." Although 

 the little pamphlet does not bear the name of a publisher, 

 M. Ruelens, by comparing the works of the great Flemish printers, 

 has discovered that Martens was the person. This individual 

 distinguished himself among all his fellows about the end of the 

 fifteenth century, at Antwerp, by his intelligent and progressive 

 character. He was a great publisher of his day ; he issued more 

 than fifty writings of Erasmus, More's " Utopia," works of 

 Savonarola, and many others. Facsimiles of the letter have 

 been printed by M. Ruelens, and fifty of them, numbered and 

 paged, are offered for sale. The discovery of this relic of geo- 

 graphical discovery, as well as of early Flemish printing, is an 

 event of great interest. 



The Echo dn Japan reports the arrival in Japan, at the 

 beginning of the year, of M. Joseph Martin, a French traveller, 

 who has just been exploring the parts of Siberia hitherto very 

 little known. His principal journey was from the Lena to the 

 Amoor, across the Stanowai chain of mountains. During his 

 explorations he was able to make geographical and geological 

 collections, which are intended for the Paris museums. In con- 

 sequence of hardships endured on the journey, two of his native 

 followers died and one lost his reason. 



In a paper read before the Statistical Society on the 17th inst. 

 Sir Richard Temple endeavoured to check the various official 

 returns of the population of China by applying the results ob- 

 tained from the population statistics of British India. The 

 various statements made by the Chinese Government as to the 

 numbers of people under its rule show violent fluctuations, those 

 of the last century and a half varying between 436 and 363 

 millions. These returns, as Prof. Douglas pointed out, varied 

 with the purposes for which the enumerations were made. China 

 proper and India, said Sir Richard Temple, are about the same 

 area — a million and a half of square miles. Both countries are 

 under similar conditions, physical, technical, climatic, geo- 

 graphical. In both there is a strong tendency to multiplication 

 of the race. In both the population loved to congregate in 

 favoured districts, to settle down and multiply there till the land 

 could scarcely sustain the growing multitudes, and to leave the 

 less favoured districts with a scanty though hardy population. 

 The average population of the whole of India is 184 to the 

 square mile, and if this average be applied to China (exclusive 

 of the Central plateau) it gives a population of 282,191,600 

 souls. The writer then compared, one by one, the eighteen 



