Sept. 



884] 



NATURE 



47i 



passages which have been quoted from Arab writers of the ninth 

 century only prove, in his opinion, that they did not discriminate 

 between the Caspian Sea and the Sea of Aral. There is evi- 

 dence that in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the river 

 bifurcated, and one branch found its way to the Caspian, but 

 probably ceased to do so in the sixteenth century. This agrees 

 with Turcoman traditions. Even so late as 1869 the waters of 

 the Oxus reached Lake Sara Kamysh, 80 or 90 miles from their 

 channel, in a great flood, as happened, also in 1850, but Sara 

 Kamysh is now some 49 feet lower than the Caspian, and before 

 they could proceed further an immense basin must be filled. 

 The difficulties then of the restoration by artificial means of a 

 communication which natural causes have cut off, are (a) the 

 disappearance of the old bed, which cannot be traced at all over 

 part of the way ; (/') the possibility that further natural changes, 

 such as have taken place on the Syr-Daria, may defeat the 

 object ; {c) the immense expenditure under any circumstances 

 necessary, the distance being about 350 miles, which would be 

 out of all proportion to any immediate commercial benefit to be 

 expected. We may very safely conclude that the thing will not 

 be done, nor is it at all probable that Russian finances will permit 

 the alternative proposal of cutting a purely artificial canal by the 

 shortest line, at an estimated expense of 15,000,000 to 20,000,000 

 roubles. 



We have had, I think, no news of the intrepid Russian 

 traveller, _Col. Prjevalsky, who started from Kiakhta on 

 November 20, of later date than January 20, when he had 

 reached Alashan, north of the Great Wall. He had for the 

 third time crossed the great Desert of Gobi, where he expe- 

 rienced a temperature below the freezing-point of mercury, and 

 was to start for Lake Kuku-nor (+ 10,500 feet) the following 

 day, thence to proceed to Tsaidam, where he proposed to form 

 a depot of stores and provisions, and, leaving some of his party 

 here, to endeavour to reach the sources of the Yang-tse-kiang, 

 or Yellow River. It was his intention to devote the early part 

 of the present summer to exploration of the Sefani country, 

 situated between Kuku-nor to the north and Batan to the south 

 — a country likely to yield an abundant harvest of novelty in 

 natural history — afterwards to transfer his party to Hast, in 

 Western Tsaidam, which may be reached next spring. From 

 this point the expedition will endeavour first to explore Northern 

 Thibet, wdiich is his main object, in the direction of Lhasa and 

 Lake Tengri-nor, and then returning northward, cross the 

 Thibet plateau by new routes to Lake Lob-nor. After the re- 

 assembly of the expedition at this point, it will probably regain 

 Russian territory at Issyk-kul. Col. Prjevalsky is accom- 

 panied by two officers, an interpreter, and an escort of twenty 

 Cossacks. 



As you are aware, we have been chiefly indebted to natives of 

 India for several years past for our knowledge of the regions 

 beyond the British boundary. Mr. McNair, of the Indian Sur- 

 vey Department, who received the Murchison premium of this 

 year, is the first European who has ever penetrated so far as 

 Chitral, which is only 200 miles from Peshawur. In various 

 disguises, however, natives, carefully instructed, have penetrated 

 the neighbouring but unneighbourly regions of Afghanistan, 

 Kashmir, Turkestan, Nepaul, Thibet — in almost every direction 

 — and these achievements were crowned by one of them, known 

 as A-k, reaching Saitu or Sachu, in Mongolia, in 1882, and 

 thence returning in safety to India, after an absence of four 

 years. His route took him to Darchendo or Tachialo (lat. 31°), 

 the most westerly point reached by the late Capt. W. J. Gill, 

 R.E., in 1877, and thus connects the explorations of that 

 accomplished and lamented traveller with Central Asia. A-k 

 has brought fresh evidence that the Sanpoo and the Brahmapootra 

 are one ; the quite modern opinion that the former flows into 

 the Irrawaddy being shown to be groundless. After draining the 

 northern slopes of the Himalayas, the Brahmapootra makes a 

 loop round their eastern flanks where it has been called the 

 Dehang, and thence, as everybody knows, flows westerly to join 

 the Ganges ; the maps have been shown in this instance to be 

 right. The travels of these native explorers, their stratagems 

 and their disguises, their hazards and sufferings, their frequent 

 hair-breadth escapes, are teeming with excitement. One of 

 them describes a portion of his track at the back of Mount 

 Everest, as carried for a third of a mile along the face of a 

 precipice at a height of 1500 feet above the Bhotia-kosi River, 

 upon iron pegs let into the face of the rock, the path being 

 formed by bars of iron and slabs of stone stretching from peg to 

 peg, in no place more than 18 inches, and often not more than 



9 inches, wide. Nevertheless this path is constantly used by men 

 carrying burdens. 



One of the finest feats of mountaineering on record was per- 

 formed last year by Mr. W. W. Graham, who reached an eleva- 

 tion of 23,500 feet in the Himalayas, about 2900 feet above the 

 summit of Chimborazo, whose ascent by Mr. Whymper in 1S80- 

 marked an epoch in these exploits. Mr. Graham was accom- 

 panied by an officer of the Swiss army, an experienced moun- 

 taineer, and by a professional Swi=s guide. They ascended 

 Kabru, a mountain visible from Darjeeling, lying to the west of 

 Kanchinjunga, whose summit still defies the strength of man. 



And here I may refer to that great work, the Trigonometrical 

 Survey of India. The primary triangulation, commenced in the 

 year 1S00, is practically completed, although a 1 i 1 tie work re- 

 mains to extend it to Ceylon on one side and to Siam on the 

 other. Much secondary triangulation remains to be executed, 

 but chiefly outside the limits of India proper. The Pisgah views, 

 by which some of the loftiest mountains in the world have been 

 fixed in position, soaretimes from points in the nearest H ma- 

 layas, 120 miles distant, only serve to arouse a warmer desire 

 for unrestrained access. The belief long entertained that a 

 summit loftier than Mount Everest exists in Thibet is by no 

 means extinct, but it is possible that the snowy peak intended 

 may prove eventually to be the Mount Everest itself of the 

 original Survey. Still, however, science, in spite of fanatical 

 obstruction, makes sure advances. The extraordinary learning 

 and research by which Sir H. Rawlinson was enabled a few 

 years since to expose a series of mystifications or falsifications 

 relating to the Upper Oxus, which had been received on high 

 geographical authority, can never be forgotten. That river has 

 now been traced from its sources in the Panjab, chiefly by native 

 explorers, and to them we may be said to be indebted for all we 

 know of Nepaul, from which Europeans are as jealously ex- 

 cluded as they are from the wildest Central Asian Khanate, 

 although Nepaul is not so far from Calcutta as Kingston is from 

 Quebec. 



Carrying their instruments to the most remote and inaccessible 

 places, and among the most primitive hill tribes, the narrative 

 reports of the officers of the Indian Survey are full of ethno- 

 graphic and other curious information. Take for example the 

 account given by Mr. G. A. McGill, in 1S82, of the Bishnoies 

 of Rajputana, a class of people, he says, who live by themselves, 

 and are seldom to be found in the same village with the other 

 castes. "These people hold sacred everything animate and 

 inanimate, carrying this belief so far that they never even cut 

 down a green tree ; they also do all in their power to prevent 

 others from doing the same, and this is why they live apart from 

 other people, so as not to witness the taking of life. The Bish- 

 noies, unlike the rest of the inhabitants, strictly avoid drink, 

 smoking, and eating opium ; this being prohibited to them by 

 their religion. They are also stringently enjoined to monogamy 

 and to tlie performance of regular ablutions daily. Under all 

 these circumstances, and as may be expected, the Bishnoies are 

 a well-to-do community, but are abhorred by the other people, 

 especially as by their domestic and frugal habits they soon get 

 rich, and are the owners of the best lands in the country." 



In one particular the experience of the Indian Survey carries 

 a lesson to this country. "A constantly growing demand," says 

 Gen. Walker, "has risen of late years for new surveys on a 

 large scale, in supersession of the small-scale surveys which were 

 executed a generation or more ago. . . . The so-called topo- 

 graphical surveys of those days were in reality geographical 

 reconnaissances sufficient for all the requirements of the Indian 

 atlas, and for general reproduction on small scales, but not for 

 purposes which demand accurate delineation of minute detail." 

 We have in the Canadian North-West a region which has not 

 yet passed beyond the preliminary stage, and it would probably 

 be possible to save much future expenditure by timely adoption 

 of the more rigorous system. There is perhaps no region on 

 the globe which offers conditions more favourable for geodesy 

 than'the long stretch of the western plains, or where the highest 

 problems are more likely to present themselves in relation to the 

 form and density of the earth. The American surveyors have 

 already measured a trigonometrical base of about io'86 miles in 

 the Sacramento Valley, the longest I believe as yet measured in 

 any country (the Yolo Base) and reported to be one of the most 

 accurate. 



The Preside it then referred to Australian exploration, the 

 International Polar Expeditions, deep-sea research, and railway 

 extension, and concluded as follows : — 



