Jay 13, 1886 | 
NATURE. 
41 
Positions of the Comet Barnard (for Berlin Midnight) 
May R.A. Decl. Log. 4 Brightness 
hm s C ’ 
16 2 20 49 28 ON. 9682 284 
18 2 35 41 23 17 9°637 318 
20 253 8 17 23 9°596 349 
GEOGRAPHICAL NOTES 
AMONGST the members of the mission proceeding from India 
to Tibet, under the charge of Mr. Colman Macaulay, are Col. 
Yanner, surveyor, Dr. Oldham, geologist, and Dr. Cunning- 
ham, naturalist. The expecition will leave Darjeeling about 
the end of the present month, and, marching through inde- 
pendent Sikkim, will cross the Jalepla Pass into Tibet. Its 
destination is Lhassa, the capital. Once only has this city been 
visited by an Englishman, Thomas Manning, and practically the 
whole route lies through a Zexva incognita. As Mr. Macaulay 
bears letters from the Chinese authorities, for which he madea 
special journey to Pekin last year, it is not anticipated that he 
will meet with any obstacles on his way to, or during his stay 
on, ‘*the roof of the world.” The three scientific members of 
his mission will find abundance of work to do, and the news of 
the progress of the expedition may be looked for with interest. 
THE new number of the Yownal of the Royal Asiatic 
Society (vol. xviii., part 2) contains an interesting article by 
Mr. Morison, of Tiflis, on the geographical distribution of Turki 
languages. The following isa summary. Dividing Turki into 
tive sub-branches—Turki proper, Nogai, Uigur, Khirghiz, and 
Yakut—he states that the various subdivisions of, first, Turki 
proper, are spoken by the ruling class of the Ottoman Empire 
and the inhabitants of Asia Minor, in the Governments of Nijni 
Novgorod, Kasan, Simbirsk, Viatka, and Orenburg, in Trans- 
Caucasia, and North-Western Persia ; the Nogai in Bessarabia, 
the Crimea, Cis-Caucasia, the Volga Delta, North-Eastern 
Daghestan, Terek Valley, the north-western shore of the Cas- 
pian, the Governments of Kasan and Simbirsk, Astrakan, 
Orenburg, and Ufa; the Uigur in Yarkhand and Chinese 
Tartary, the country of the Tekke, Zarafshan Valley, and 
generally in Central Turkestan, in the Khanate and Desert of 
Khiva and south of the Aral Sea, and in Kuldja; the Kirghiz 
from the Volga to the confines of Manchuria, but most compact 
in South-Western Siberia; and the Yakut in North-Eastern 
Siberia and on the northern slopes of Mount Sayan. Broadly 
speaking, says Mr. Morison, the Ugro-Altaic languages, of 
which Turki is one, are spoken over a region extending through 
more than 1co° of longitude, from the shores of the Adriatic to 
the Great Wall of China and the plateau of Tibet, and through 
35° of latitude, from the frozen steppes of Samoyede and Yakut 
to the plains of Northern Persia and the head-waters of the 
Indus. The Turki alone, according to the figures given, is 
spoken, in one or other of its various forms, by more than 
20,000,000 of people. 
THE Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society for May 
contains a paper by Mr. Carles on his recent journeys in Corea, 
accompanied by a very useful map of the peninsula. Some 
account of these journeys has already appeared in Parliamentary 
Blue-Books, but much is added in the present paper. The 
writer refers to the many different types found amongst the 
Coreans of the present day; the facial characteristics of the 
people greatly resemble those of the Manchus, but Jews, 
Japanese, and Caucasians appear to be universally represented. 
There is also a curious reference to evidence of some forms of 
religion other than those imported from China in the 22770%, or 
half-length human figures carved in stone. Mr. Needham also 
contributes an account of an excursion to the Abor Hills from 
Sadiya in Upper Assam. 
Baron MIKLUHO-Mac tay has just returned to Odessa from 
his journey to New Guinea, which has lasted two years. He has 
brought a large collection of rare fishes, lizards, snakes, insects, 
and so on, packed in twenty-two boxes. 
ANOTHER Russian traveller, M. Goudatti, the Secretary of 
the Moscow Society of Friends of Natural Science, who has 
also just returned from his journey to the north of Siberia, gives 
a curious account of his failure to accomplish his purpose. 
The Ostiaks and Samoyedes took him for a Government official 
on a recruiting mission, especially when he attempted to measure 
their heads, and took notes in his note-book. Finally the book 
was stolen, and all the results of his efforts lost. ; 
Herr Rappe, who had started in January last with a scien- 
tific expedition from Tiflis to the Transcaspian region, writes 
from Askabad lately that this spring was very unfavourable for 
his researches, being three to four months later than usual. 
Therefore up to the middle of April he had not succeeded in col- 
lecting more than 35 species of plants and about 150 birds. 
Amongst these latter there is an interesting novelty, the P.cas 
sindiacus, a pretty bird living in the high shrubs of Zamarrx. 
The explorer intends to-proceed during the present month to 
the mountain region between the Murghab and Tejen, and to 
return to Askabad through Sarakhs. 
THE May number of the Scottish Geographical Magazine has 
an interesting article by Mr. Tripp on the physical configuration 
and rainfall of South Africa, with notes on its geology, diamond 
and coal-fields, and forests. The paper is accompanied by two 
maps showing contours and mean annual rainfall. A note by 
M. Dingelstedt on geographical education in the schools of the 
Caucasus shows that in Russia primary instructionin geography 
is as defective as in England. It is not made attractive, the 
writer complains ; it only taxes the memory ; the text-books are 
written to match, and few teachers are equal to the task of 
interesting their pupils in the subject. There are some inter- 
esting notes on the place-names of Kinross-shire by Mr. Liddall, 
and on the seaboard of Aberdeenshire, by Mr. Ferguson. The 
geographical notes are particularly copious and comprehensive, 
THE current number (Bd. xiii. No. 4) of the Verhandlungex 
of the Berlin Geographical Society contains only one paper—a 
lecture by Dr. Naumann on the Japanese Islands and their 
inhabitants. The Zeitschrift of the same Society (Bd. xxi. 
Heft 2) is mainly occupied by a paper of Dr. Schweinfurth’s on 
a journey which he made in the ‘‘ region of depression” around 
Fayoum at the commencement of the present year. It is 
accompanied by a map, and fills 53 of the 66 pages forming the 
number. ‘There is a short paper of great interest on the Maori 
population of New Zealand, based on the last census of that 
colony. The writer (who does not give his name) discusses the 
causes of the dying out of the race, and also the attitude of the 
Colonial Government towards the Maories. There is a note 
from Prof. Kunze on the climatology of South America, and, 
lastly, a long list of barometrical observations by Lieut. Francois 
in the Kassai region. 
THE SUN AND STARS* 
VI. 
Summary of Results 
[NX what has gone before we have found that the prominences, 
and the spots, have special spectra unlike the ordinary spec- 
trum of the sun, and unlike the spectra of the chemical elements. 
Further, we know that when we proceed outwards to the 
spectra of the inner and outer corona we find ourselves very 
little better off, for, with the exception of hydrogen, there is no 
substance which is perfectly familiar to us ; and finally, when we 
come to study the association of phenomena on the sun, we find 
that, exactly while the spots and prominences give us the 
greatest divergences from terrestrial conditions, solar facts indi- 
cate that these phenomena are allied in the most close and 
obviously important manner. We must henceforth consider 
that the spots and the metallic prominences and the facula 
represent different indications of the same solar action. 
Now, to continue this part of the inquiry is fundamental for 
us. It is almost impossible to see a large spot at the edge of 
the sun, which is the place for observing it best, without finding 
this downrush towards the photosphere answered, so to speak, 
by an uprush from below the photosphere—without finding this 
downrush of cool, absorbing, dark-and-widened-line-producing 
material, re-echoed by an uprush of bright-lined substance. 
There is one word which expresses, as well as anything 
I can think of, the impression which is made on one by the 
phenomena. There is a sf/ash. Imagine an enormous cauldron 
of liquid iron, as hot as you like. Play some water into it 
from a hose; there will be a splash. The water, of course, 
© A Course of Lectures to Working Men delivered by J. Norman Lockyer, 
F.R.S., at the Museum cf Practical Geology. Revised from shorthand 
notes. Continued from vol. xxxili. p. 543- 
