OcTOBER 12, 1916] NATURE 111 
great barren hill region usually designated the | tunity of crossing the Pamirs to study the his- 
Pei-shan Gobi. The site known as that of “The | torical geography of that region. Here one of 
the most remarkable 
j RR eae. ee i Tae. features of the land- 
aye rae oer: , + scape was the splen- 
Ig oS : | did glacier peaks of 
By, t Rivet Yh | Muz-tagh, seen from 
oi ee . ; the watershed, about 
tr? tos nae ae T1,000 ft. high, on 
ae f. 4 ie the Tars-agar Pass 
ei Yi ie j (Fig. 3). It is satis- 
; Cre ce : factory to record 
oes ; Stas Sgt that Sir Aurel Stein 
35 speaks in high terms 
of the results of the 
Russian Topographi- 
cal Survey of the 
Pamirs, which had 
been in progress for 
some years before 
the outbreak of the 
war. At last his de- 
sire to visit Lake 
Victoria or Zor-Kol 
was satisfied, and 
thence he _ passed 
through Wakhan to 
Samarkand, and 
thence into Seistan, 
: ; Ent ; k where, at  Koh-i- 
Fic. 2.—Interior of Ancient Fort with wind-breached portion o. Rampart, south-west of Lou-Lan site. yr . 
From the Geographical Journal. Khwaja, he was 
lucky enough to dis- 
Thousand Buddhas,” from which a large mass of | cover the remains of a Buddhist sanctuary, the 
material was collected in an earlier tour, in spite | first ever traced on Iranian soil. Finally, passing 
of an_ ill-considered 
seizure of manuscripts 
bwecuen Chinese 
Government, was 
found capable of pro- 
viding large additional 
hoards; while the sur- 
vey of the ruins of 
Khara-Khoto — estab- 
lished the identity of 
the site with Marco 
Polo’s “city of Et- 
zina.”” At the north 
foot of the T’ien-shan 
range he traced the 
original route through 
which all the his- 
torical migrations 
westward — Indo- 
Scythians, Huns, and 
Turks — must have 
passed. In May, 
1915, the traveller re- 
turned to Kashgar, 
and it might have 
been supposed that 
the wayworn party 
pauls Rave been F GI ks of ‘*M k bi Muk fi hed (ab fi 
1 1G. 3.—Glacier peaks of ‘* Muz-tagh"’ above Muk-su, seen from watershed (about 11,000 ft.) on Tars-agar Pass. 
satisfied to return and x From the Geographical Journal, 
convey the important 
collections of new material to India. But the | through Baluchistan, he reached the Indian rail- 
indefatigable leader determined to take the oppor- | way system at Nushki, by which he arrived at 
NO. 2450, VOL. 98] 
