Nov. 12, 1874] 



NA TURE 



31 



not find an opportunity of going there. However, 

 M. Barbot de Morny is at the present moment on 

 a visit to those hills. They are supposed to be 

 of the same formation as the country adjacent to 

 a place called, I think, Beresoff, in Siberia, where 

 gold is found ; perhaps this is the key to the problem 

 of the Russian annexation of the Amii Darya district, 

 which does not cost them less than 100,000/. per annum. 

 In Khiva, all along the left bank, and between Petro 

 Alexandros'dya and Shah Abbas Wali on the right 

 bank (Russian), there is a good deal of cultivation. Trees 

 are cultivated all along the irrigation canals : willows, 

 aspens, mulberries, planes, black poplars, apple-trees, 

 peaches, &c., fruit of all kinds in great variety, and very 

 good. Crops are maizs, wheat, barley, cotton, madder, 

 tobacco, poppy, lucerne, sesanum, lic. Everything is irri- 



MefelK-kU-CM finiitier] 



gated and raised with great labour. The islands in the 

 river are grazed, the banks and islands are covered with 

 the tall reedy grass {Lasiagrostis splcndens), tamarisk, 

 dwarf willow i^Elicagiius * hoiU-nsis), an acacia, called, 1 



' Ela-agnus is cultivated, and the fruit is probably the Ponticnm of 

 Herodotus. Vule says Baker mentions incidentally the paint as growing en 

 the banks ol the Oxus. I have not Baker to refer to, but it would be inte- 

 resting to know what word he uses ; it is probable that he uses some word 

 equivalent to date, and I cannot help thinking he means Eiieagiiiis, the fruit 

 of which is like a date. I have some fruit preserved in spirit— for Sir H. 

 Rawlinson if he would like it. Curiously enough, the Russi.xns call Elieagnus, 

 pherickc, i.e date, insteid of its proper name, Jidda. 



As to the name of the river 0-\u*-, is it settled what was the meaning ot 

 this word ? The legend on the map attached to the Grand Charter, com- 

 piled 15S4-1598 A.D., translated by the Russian historian Karenuin, says: 

 "And 170 versts (old versts of 700 sag.) from Bokhara, from Lake Oguz 

 (which is (7.f in our language), flows a river towards Khoralim (Caspian)." 

 Here Lake Victoria is Lake O^m—Lakc 0/ the Ox. Vule, in his 0.vus 

 Essay, has a note, p. l.xxxvi. ; "It is worthy of notice that what has been 

 regarded as a Yak. figured on the obelisk" (I suppose the one in the British 

 Museum — the black obelisk) "of Nimroud is described in the accompanying 

 inscription as Alap-Nahr-Sakiya, the ox 01 the river Sakiya, a title which 

 may probably characterise the L'pper Oxus, rising among the hills of the 

 Sakiya or Sacx." Did the name ol the river come, then, from the Yak, 

 which may have existed in Pamir, and is a sufficiently interesting animal 

 to give its name to a stream it frequented ? ViJe note on p. Ixiv. of Yule's 

 Oxus Essay. 



Cimbye, Mikus, and Petro Alexandroskiya are the three Russian posts 

 or camps in the Ainu Darya district. 



think, Halimodendroii, and a creeper. The sandy tracts 

 on the right bank have a sparse vegetation of Lyciuin, 

 Halostachys, and Aristida pcnnata. I do not think 

 much of any consequence has been done in the botanical 

 way. I found on an island in the central delta a 

 fern which must have had its origin in some distant 

 glen of the north slope of the Hindoo Koosh. M. 

 Smymoff, the botanist of Kazan University, found a 

 specimen of Sak Saul further to the south than it was 

 supposed to grow. The flooded parts of the delta and 

 the islands have a dense growth of Arundo p/iraginilis 

 and Typha; the Arundo grows to a height of 20 ft. or so, 

 in places. 



By the way, I forgot to mention that in the high 

 ground of the delta I found beds of conglomerate, 

 formed of bivalve shells chiefly with sharks' teeth, 

 cemented together in the vein. Thin beds of sand- 

 stone also occur in the masses of sedim.entary clay of 

 which these hills and the Bish'yabye ridges are formed. 

 At Bish'yabye I found very large ammonites (iS"diam.) 

 and similar univalves, as well as large bivalves. The 

 crests of these hills and ridges are generally crowned 

 with a shallow bed of ferrugmous sandstones, the frag- 

 ments of which strew the flanks and feet of the elevations. 

 Selenite occurs in great quantity and in large pieces, in 

 the clay. 



I think I have sent you pretty nearly all of any 

 interest. I have written this letter in a great hurry, as 

 I am just about starting for my trip across the steppe 

 to Peroffsky, along the old course of the Djani Darya. 



I look upon the canalisation of the Amii (somewhat in 

 the way before suggested) as capital for the canalisation 

 of Central Asia. It is a scheme which will certainly cost 

 money, but the beneficial results will be so enormous to 

 Russia herself, that I think it is all but certain to be en- 

 tered on sooner or later. The climate is superb. 



MEMORIAL TO JEREMIAH HORROCKS 

 T N reply to the petition recently published in NATUttE, 

 -'■ the Dean and Chapter of Westminster have signified 

 their willingness to permit the erection of a tablet within 

 the Abbey, and in consideration of the very exception.vl 

 circumstances of the case, have reduced the fee ordi- 

 narily payable to the Chapter to the sum of 25/. 



A subscription, which it has been thought well to 

 restrict to the sum of one guinea for each subscriber, has 

 been set on foot to defray the expenses incidental to the 

 erection of the tablet and the fee of the Chapter. 



Should there be any surplus, it is proposed to invest it 

 in the names of trustees, and to devote the interest to the 

 purchase of books to be deposited in the library of the 

 Royal Astronomical Society, the fund to be called " Tne 

 Horrocks Library Fund." 



.Subscriptions have already been received from — 

 J. Couch Adatns, Esq., M.A., F.R.S., Lo wndean Prof. 



of Astronomy in the University of Cimbriiljje, £ s. J. 



President of the Royal Astronomical Sjciety i i o 



Sir George Biddell Any, K.C.B., V.P.K.S., &c., 



Astronomer Royal i i o 



The Hon. Mrs. Henry Arundell i i o 



J. B I I o 



The Rev. A. Brickel, 13.A., Rector of Hoole 1 i o 



W. H. M. Christie, Esq., M.A., &o., First Aj=istant 



at the Royal Observatory, Greemvich i i o 



Tlie Baroness Burde;t Coiitts i i o 



Warren De la Rue, Esq., D.C.L., F.R.S., &i i i o 



The Duke of Devonshire, Chancellor ol the Univer- 

 sity of Cambridge, F.R.S., &c. &c I I o 



Edwin Dunkin, Esq , Secretary of the Royal Astro- 

 nomical Society i i o 



Kenedy Esdaile, Esq., J.P., M..\., F.R.j\.S I 1 o 



Prof. Glad.stone, Ph.D., F.R.S., &c i i o 



Robert Grant, Esq., LL.D., F.R.S., Regius Professor 

 of .\strommy in the University of Glasgow, &c, ... I I o 



