December 8, 1898J 



NA TURE 



redeemed a long strip of the map of Tibet along the 

 parallel of 36' N. from absolute blankness. Leaving 

 Khotan with a large caravan of horses, donkeys and 

 camels in June 1896, Dr. Hedin proceeded eastward, 

 skirting the desert to Kopa, then turning south-west into 

 unknown country across the west end of the Altyn-tagh, 

 he crossed the parallel range of the Arka-tagh (close to 

 the place where Littledale crossed it going south), and 

 marched eastward for twenty-six days along a great 

 'elevated region averaging nearly 16,000 feet in height, 

 with the Arka-tagh bordering it to the north, and another 

 snowy range, the Kokoshili,to the south. This is spoken 

 of as a "latitudinal valley," or as a valley bordered by 

 "latitudinal mountain ranges," but the sense of the term 

 is not clear, the expression loiii;itiidi>7al valley would ap- 

 pear to be the correct one, as it seems to be a vast trough 

 between parallel mountain ridges. The centre of the 



.\xii. and xxiii., said in the te.xt to be the longest day's 

 journey, is represented as very nearly the shortest, andl 

 the position assigned to the camps does not fit the 

 description. At length, on October 1, 1896, Mongols 

 were met, and a descent made from the Tibet plateau to 

 the Tsaidam swamps, whence the route lay over known 

 ground to Peking, and thence Dr. Hedin returned to- 

 Sweden across Mongolia, Siberia and Russia. 



When one contemplates such a journey, so brightly and 

 popularly told, full of adventure, hardships and solitude^ 

 yet every hour of it occupied in collecting, observing, 

 note-taking and map-making, and when one remembers 

 that only German training can make such work possible 

 at present, even to the most adventurous and persevering 

 traveller, it is impossible not to be struck from another 

 side by Sir John Murray's feeling, expressed in his receat 

 appeal for Antarctic exploration : — 



of Takla-mak:, 



trough is occupied by a succession of small basins, each an 

 independent centreof drainage, and each containing a long 

 narrow salt lake lying east and west. It is really a land- 

 surface in the making. If the precipitation had been 

 heavy enough to fill these basins and start rivers flowing 

 from one to another, the whole valley would now be 

 drained by a great axial river ; but in default of river 

 erosion the basins remain untapped, and wind and frost 

 alone are fashioning their peculiar topography. A little 

 yellow grass was found in patches in the basins, on which 

 vast herds of wild asses and wild yaks were feeding ; but 

 for fifty-five days no human being or human habitation was 

 seen. We look forward with much interest to the detailed 

 description of this interesting region, the map of which, 

 prepared in Sweden, is obviously only provisional, and 

 not accurate ; for instance, the distance between camps 



NO. I 5 19, VOL. 59] 



"The conviction that we are, in exploration andl 

 scientific research, not doing anything like our best, is 

 much deepened when we compare our present efforts- 

 with what is being done in these directions by other 

 progressive nations." Hugh Robert Mill. 



THE AMERICAN AGRICULTURAL YEAR- 

 BOOK.^ 

 \^EAR by year the official volume issued by the- 

 Department of Agriculture at Washington appears: 

 to increase in interest and importance, and the latest 

 addition to the series is well-nigh bewildering in the 



1 "Year-book of the United States Department of .-Agriculture, 1897." 

 Pp. 492 : with 40 plain or coloured plates, and 43 tigures in ihe text. (Waih- 

 ingtou : Government Printing Office, 1S98.) 



