472 
NATURE 
| .Warch 15, 1883 
those of the frontier between Russia and Persia, from the Caspian | 
> I 
to Babadurmaz, and of the frontier between Russia and Turkey, 
from the Black Sea to Ararat; both are accompanied with | 
maps.—General Stebnitzky contributes a most valuable sketch 
of all that is known about the Pontian range, which follows 
the southern coast of the Black Sea from the Yeshil-irmak to the 
Chorokh.—M., Stepanoff contributes an interesting paper on the 
province of Kars, recently annexed to Russia ; and M. Bakradze 
oneon the ethnography of the same province. The province consists 
of three different parts : the lowlands of the basin of the Olti 
River, covered with clay hills intersected with irrigation canals, 
and offering great advantages for gardening; the 5000 to 6000 
feet high plateau of Kars, 50 miles long and 35 miles wide, 
bordered with mountains the highest of which reaches 9700 feet. 
It is covered with lavas and basalts, deeply cut by rivers ; 
the mountains are devoid of wood; agriculture is carried on on this 
plateau, notwithstanding its great height. The third part of the 
province is again a plateau, 6000 to 7000 feet high, where agri- 
culture becomes impossible, but covered with good pasture-land, 
and dotted with lakes. The population of the province has suffered 
much from wars, In the basin of the Olti and in the north-east 
it was formerly Georgian, who haye become Mussulmans ; the 
Kurds make one-sixth of the population. The basins of the 
Araxes and Kars rivers were formerly occupied by Armenians. 
The capital of Armenia, Ani, now in ruins, was situated here. 
After 1830, no less than 90,000 Armenians emigrated into 
Russian dominions, whilst Turks, Turcomans, Karapakhs, and 
Caucasian emigrants (Kabards and Osets) occupied their place, 
forming thus a most mixed population. Presently the Mussul- 
mans emigrated back from the province (no less than 65,447 souls 
during two years), and 7100 Russian Nonconformists have occu- 
pied their place, as well as 10,000 Greeks and about 4100 
Armenians. The migration of whole populations is thus still 
going on in our times, as it was going on formerly after the great 
wars of the past. It is easy to foresee that the country contains 
most remarkable Armenian antiquities, such as churches built in 
the ninth and tenth centuries. 
Since the year 1880 the director of the Tiflis Observatory, M. 
Milberg, has undertaken a series of measurements of the tempe- 
rature of the ground, together with measurements of temperature 
by a black-bulb thermometer suspended 1°5 metres above the 
ground, and M. Smirnoff analyses the results of these measure- 
ments. The blackened thermometer has given a somewhat 
higher average temperature for the year than the usual thermo- 
meter suspended in shade (12°°7 Celsius, instead of 11°°6); the 
same was observed, as is known, in England. At the same 
time its maxima are obviously higher and its minima are lower 
than those of the usual thermometer in shade, its range being 
from —14°'5 to +42°'9, instead of —12°°0 to +37°°6; whilst 
the range of average temperatures of different months was 28°°6 
instead of 27°°5 inthe shade. The underground thermometers 
were placed at depths of 1, 2, 5, 12, 20, 41, and 79 centimetres, 
and were observed, the six former every hour, and the last 
each three hours. ‘Two other thermometers, placed at depths of 
1°6 and 3°5 metres, were observed onceaday. The whole series 
of observations is published in the AZemoirs of the Caucasian 
Agricultural Society, and the /zvestia give the monthly averages, 
as well as a résumé of the results. We shall add to this 7éswmé 
that the observations at Tiflis show well the retardation of sea- 
sons at a depth of 79 centimetres, the coldest and warmest 
months being February and August, instead of January and 
July. The frosts at the spot where the observations were made 
do not penetrate deeper than 40 centimetres.—M. Masloysky 
gives some observations of temperature at Askhabad, in the 
Akhaltekke oasis, during the summer months ; the moisture in 
May was but 31 to 33 per cent., falling as low as 17 per cent., 
and reaching sometimes 59 per cent.—M. Chernyavsky gives the 
Abkhaze, Mingrelian, and Georgian names of different plants. 
Several papers deal with the population of the Caucasus: M. 
Zagursky has contributed a paper on the ethnographical maps of 
the Caucasus, and, after having sharply criticised the works of 
M. Rittich, reeommends as the best ethnographical map of the 
Caucasus, that which was published by M. Seidlitz in Péter- 
manws Mittheilungen, and in which M. Zagursky has embodied 
the results of the little-known but remarkable linguistic works of 
the late General Uslar. Still this map leaves much to desire 
and ought to be accompanied by an explanatory memoir.—The 
much-debated question as to the number of Armenians in the 
Russian dominions is discussed by M. Eritsoff, who comes to the 
conclusion that it must be (taking into account the increase of 
population until 1881) 860,456 on the Caucasus, and 56,536 in 
| European Russia.—M. von Eckert gives the results of anthropo- 
logical measurements he has made, according to the instructions 
of Virchow, on 30 Adighes, 7 Ingushes, 11 Georgians, 14 Osets, 
14 Armenians, 9 Aderbijan Tartars, and 8o Little-Russians from 
the Government of Kharkoff. They proved to be all brachy- 
cephalic, the average indexes being 80°7 for the Osets, 80°9 for 
the Tartars, 81°9 for the Ingushes, 82’o for the Adighes, 82°2 for 
the Little-Russians, 83-3 for the Georgians, and 86°75 for the 
Armenians. The percentage of broad faces (chamdprosop faces, 
that is, those where the breadth between the cheek-bones is less 
than 89'9 per cent. of the length of the face, measured from the 
upper part of the nose to the lowe-t part of the chin) is 44 for 
Tartars, 64 for Armenians, 71 to 77 for Osets, Georgians, and 
Adighes, 86 for Ingushes, and go for Little- Russians. 
The same volume contains several notes : on the Charjui; a list 
of heights in the Aderbijan ; on the Scotch colony at Kuras and 
many others; and a bibliographical notice, by M. Stebnitzky, 
of Elisée Reclus’s description of the Caucasus, which is spoken 
of in high terms.—The Appendix contains the translation, 
with notes, of the memoir, by Major Trotter, on the Kurds 
in Asia Minor, and of the Consular Report of W. Gifford Pal- 
grave on the provinces of Trebizond, Sivas, and Kastamuni. 
The eleventh volume of the Memoirs of the Caucasian Geo- 
graphical Society contains three papers by M. Petrusevitch : on 
the Turcomans between the Uzboy and the northern borders of 
Persia; on the north-eastern provinces of Khorassan ; and on 
the south-eastern coast of the Caspian and the routes to Merv. 
Some of these papers are already known to English geographers ; 
and the others probably will be translated in full. They are 
accompanied by a map of the Russian Trans-Caspian dominios 
and of Northern Persia. 
The twelfth volume of the J/emozrs contains the first part of 
a large work, by the late General Uslar, on the ancient history 
of the Caucasus. It deals with the oldest traditions about the 
Caucasus, and is a most remarkable attempt at a sczev/ific inquiry 
into the remotest history of this country. It is accompanied by 
a biographical notice of General Uslar, by M. Zayursky, his 
collaborator and follower. It is certain that M. Uslar, who 
pursued for many years the truly scientific exploration vf Cau- 
casian languages (undertaken first by Sjogren), has done in this 
branch far more than anybody else. But his works—which were 
only lithographed in a few copies, and each of which is not only 
a serious study of separate Janguages, but also a thorough de- 
scription of the nation it deals with—are very little known, and 
this only from the short reports that were made on them by 
the late Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, M. 
Schiefner. The few pages in which M. Zagursky gives an 
account of the work of Uslar, of the methods he followed, and 
of the results he arrived at, ought to be translated in full, as 
surely they would be most welcome to all those in England who 
are interested in the study of ethnology. They deserve much 
more than a short notice. Paik 
UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 
INTELLIGENCE 
Oxrorp.—Prof. Moseley and Prof. Burdon Sanderson have 
been appointed ex officio Members of the Board of the Faculty of 
Natural Science. 
Prof, Clifton has been elected a Member of the Hebdomadal 
Council in place of the late Prof. Smith. 
The Professorship of Archeology and Art, founded by the 
late Commissioners out of the revenues of Lincoln College, has 
been in abeyance owing to the proposed statute not having 
received the Queen’s assent. The College now proposes to endow 
the professorship, and a statute will be promulgated at the 
beginning of next term, providing for a Professor of Classical 
Archeology and Art, ‘who shall lecture on the arts and manu- 
factures, monuments, coins, and inscriptions of classical antiquity, 
and on Asiatic and Egyptian antiquities, or on some of those 
subjects.” ; 
Mr. G. A. Buckmaster, B.A., and late Natural Science 
Demy of Magdalen College, has, after examination, been elected 
to the Radcliffe Travelling Fellowship. Mr. Buckmaster 
also obtained the Burdett Coutts Scholarship for proficiency in 
geology in 1882, The Fellowship is of the annual value of 200/.,, 
tenable for three years. The candidate must declare that he in- 
tends to graduate in medicine in the University of Oxford, and to 
