NA TURE 



[May 27, 1909 



Persian fowlers, like their Indian confreres, are adepts 

 in the art of snaring, and it is curious to note that 

 one of their devices for capturing a wild hawk at 

 night by means of a lantern (p. 75) is, with slight 

 variation, to be found in the " Book of St. Albans, 

 i486." Similarly a recipe for a slow-moulting hawk 

 (p. 151) is also prescribed in that famous work of 

 Julyana Berners. To explain such unexpected coinci- 

 dences would take us now too far afield. 



A valuable feature in the present translation is the 

 number of footnotes which Col. Phillott has supplied, 

 to explain and illustrate the Persian writer's mean- 

 ing, to reconcile apparent discrepancies, or to confirm 

 his statements from his own experience. To English 

 readers interested in the literature of falconry, these 

 footnotes will prove very instructive. The illustrations 

 which accompany the text are of two kinds — repro- 

 ductions of Persian drawings of hawking scenes, and 



M^^'M^ 



photographs from life of hawks employed by Persian 

 falconers. The reader is here presented with a sample 

 of each. J. E. H. 



DR. SVEN HEDIN ON CENTRAL ASIA. 

 "T^HE April number of the Geographical Journal 

 ^ contains two papers by Dr. Sven Hedin de- 

 scriptive of his journeys through Tibet in 1906-8. 

 The first of these is a narrative of his travels, which 

 is necessarily so much abridged that it barely does 

 more than give an idea of the extent and difficulties 

 of his exploration; the other is a summary of the 

 most important, or, rather, what Dr. Hedin regards 

 as the most important, of his discoveries. The two 

 are not necessarily identical, and it may be that 

 when we have the full account of his travels the 

 NO. 2065, VOL. 80] 



discoveries to which he now attaches greatest im- 

 portance may prove of minor interest. For the 

 present, however, we have only this summary, in 

 which he enumerates the four most important results 

 of his journe)' as the discovery of (i) the true source of 

 the Brahmaputra, (2) the source of the Indus, (3) the 

 "genetic" source of the Sutlej, and (4) the discovery 

 of a continuous mountain chain, to which he applies 

 the name Trans-Himalaya. 



Of these the two first are of interest, especially the 

 fact that no part of the drainage of the Kailas 

 mountain finds its way into the Indus river; the third 

 is a doubtful discovery, for though Dr. Hedin has 

 discovered and visited the source of the largest of 

 the feeders of the Manasarowar lake, it cannot in 

 any proper sense of the word be regarded as belong- 

 ing any longer to the drainage area of the Sutlej 

 river. At one time there was continuous flow from 

 Manasarowar to Rakas Tul, and again from that to 

 the Sutlej, but (his latter has been dry for at least 

 half a century, while the former seems to have become 

 intermittent and likely to cease in the near future; 

 except for a possible escape by underground perco- 

 lation, no part of the water of these lakes now finds 

 its way into the river, and even this supposititious com- 

 munication would not justify us any longer in de- 

 scribing a tributary of either of the lakes as the 

 source of the Sutlej, nor does the matter seem much 

 bettered by the addition of the adjective genetic. 



The most important, in his own view, of Dr. 

 Hedin 's discoveries, and the one around which con- 

 troversy has settled, is that of a gi'eat continuous 

 mountain range, coextensive with and parallel to the 

 Himalayas, to which he has given the name Trans- 

 Himalaya, a name to which exception has been taken, 

 and which seems to require greater justification than 

 I Dr. Hedin has given. We may ignore the objection 

 that the term was applied by Cunningham to the 

 mountains lying between the Sutlej and the Indus, 

 but we cannot accept the quotations from other 

 authors cited as justification for the use of the term. 

 A writer from the Indian side may use, with perfect 

 correctness, the expression Trans-Himalayan, as ap- 

 plied to the country, or to explorations carried out, 

 on the further side of the Himalayas, but it is a 

 different matter when we are asked to accept the 

 words as a definite geographical term, and once this 

 proposal is brought forward the two questions arise 

 as to w-hether the word is either justifiable in itself, 

 or necessary. Of these two questions the first is a 

 literary one, and it must be confessed that some 

 real objections may be urged against the word adopted 

 by Dr. Hedin, and accepted by Lord Curzon of Kedle- 

 ston ; but the second is the important one, for, unless 

 the supposed range of mountains to which it is 

 applied has a real individuality and independent 

 existence, no special term is required or can be justi- 

 fied. 



From earliest times it has been recognised that 

 the great system of mountains which rises to the 

 north of the Indo-Gangetic plain has an individuality 

 of its own which deserves and requires a name, and 

 the word Himalaya, originally applied to a part, has 

 been extended to the whole chain of snowy peaks 

 together with their dependent mountains of lower 

 elevation. It has not, however, been so generally 

 recognised that this unity belongs less to the moun- 

 tains than to the plain at their foot, and some modern 

 geographers, not content with merely recognising the 

 individuality of the great chain, have attempted to 

 trace the individual ranges of -which it is composed 

 along the whole length of the system, and thereby 

 have retarded a proper appreciation of the true nature 

 of this system of mountains. A simile proves nothing. 



