August 27, 1896J 



NA TURE 



389 



tlie present volume contains the records of the first year's 

 journey along both slopes of the Tian-shan, in the oases 

 of ("iiichcn, Hami and Turfan. Starting from the 

 Russian Turkestan town, Jarkent, the expedition went 

 first to Kulj a, whence they crossed the Eastern Tian-shan, 

 named Horo-khoro in that portion of it. To do this, they 

 went up the steep and 8500 feet high Tsiterty, or Achal 

 Pass, from which most beautiful \ieus open on Lake 

 Ebi-nor, and where the chain falls most abruptly north- 

 wards to the sandy deserts surrounding the now rapidly 

 desiccating lake, whose altitude is only 700 feet. Then 

 the explorers made a series of unsuccessful attempts at 

 recrossing the Boro-khoro Mountains from north to 

 south. Although the Torgoutes, and ne.xt the Chinese, 

 tried 10 dissuade them from such a venture, they went, 

 nevertheless, up one of the tributaries of Lake Ebi-nor, 

 but were soon compelled to return. In their middle 

 courses, the streams which flow from the great chain 

 run through remarkable caiions deeply cut in diluvial 

 deposits, and in their upper courses the caiions become 

 mere rents between high clift's, through which the water, 

 rapidly rising from the melted snow, rushes as a torrent. 

 Compelled to return, the party explored the northern 

 spurs of the Borokhoro, vainly looking for another pass, 

 as they slowly moved east, towards the oases of Manas 

 and Urumchi. From this last oasis they visited the 

 beautiful group of the snow-clad holy mountains, Bogdo- 

 ola, which raise their peaks abo\e a picturesque alpine 

 lake. One fully realises, on reading the travellers' descrip- 

 tion of these forest-clad mountains, covered with glaciers, 

 and intersected vvitli cool alpine valleys, while barren 

 deserts surround them, why they are so much venerated 

 by the Mongols and considered as the seat of deity. 



From the next oasis, Cuchen, the party made an 

 incursion into the sandy Dzungarian desert, and there 

 secured at last, with no little difficulty, two specimens of 

 the Wild \\orie{Eguus przcwalskii, Poljakofi"), for which 

 Prjevalsky had vainly hunted on his last journeys. The 

 pages given to this hunt read like a novel — so difficult 

 and exciting was the killing of two of these cautious 

 animals, out of a herd of seven individuals who came 

 at night to drink in a small salt lake, and whose security 

 was most vigilantly watched by an old male. 



The first specimen secured was about ten years old. 

 The wild horse has something in common with the Altai, 

 Caucasian, and Finnish ponies: it is of a short stature (i '46 

 metre high), and has a broad chest and back, a short, 

 massive neck, and fine legs, as elegant as those of the race- 

 horses, end. ng with broad hoofs. The head seems rather 

 heavy in comparison to the body, but the wide forehead 

 is handsome ; the line from the forehead to the nose is 

 straight, and the upper lip covers the lower lip. The 

 tail, whose upper part has the colour of the body, while 

 its point is black, is longer than the tail of the wild ass, 

 but it is not entirely covered with hair. The mane 

 begins in front of the ears, the longest hairs being in its 

 iniddle part. In the scantiness of hair, the wild horse 

 has also something in common with the Tekke Tur- 

 comane horse ; but the killed specimen had a strange- 

 looking pair of hard whiskers, about four centimetres 

 long, running from the ears to the chin. The wild horse 

 has a sandy colour in summer, and light brown in winter, 

 with nearly white parts on the abdomen ; the forehead 

 NO. 1400, VOL. 54] 



and cheeks are darker than the remainder of the body, 

 while the end of the snout is whitish. The legs and 

 the mane (which hangs to the left) are black ; the spinal 

 mark hardly exists, and disappears in winter. As a rule 

 the hair is short and glossy, but somewhat curly in the 

 foals. A good photograph of the killed horse, in profile, 

 is given by M. Grum Grziniailo. 



The manners of life of the wild horse differ from those 

 of the wild asses — the djig/ictais and the kiilans. They 

 stay, in preference, in the deserts, while the latter prefer 

 the mountain regions. They march in Indian file v/hen 

 they feel danger, and leave in the desert their traces in 

 the shape of well-marked paths, as they march from their 

 retired abodes amidst the desert hillocks to their drink- 

 ing-places. They neigh exactly as our horses, while the 

 wild asses only bray, and they have the characteristic 

 growling of our horses. The Mongols sometimes succeed 

 in catching young foals, but they never could tame 

 them. 



From Guchen the expedition went to Hami and Turfan, 

 the most important centre of the region, and the work 

 under review contains very valuable data relative to the 

 inhabitants of these two oases. From Turfan they moved 

 southwards, exploring the Bei-shan mountains, and 

 coining to several interesting conclusions concerning the 

 relations between the Tian-shan and the southern high- 

 lands, which relations will be treated more fully in the 

 next volume. In the south of Turfan they made the 

 remarkable discovery of the Assa depression, near 

 Lukchun, where the barometer stood so high that, on 

 comparing its heights with the isobars for the correspond- 

 ing days in other parts of Central Asia, General Tillo 

 concluded that the level of this depression is about 170 

 feet below the level of the ocean. The two years' 

 barometrical observations, subsequently made by one of 

 the members of Roborovsky's expedition, have fully con- 

 firmed the above conclusion. 



A map of the region, on a scale of twenty-seven miles 

 to the inch, accompanies the work ; and certain photo- 

 graphs — namely, of the Bogdo-ola lake and mountains, 

 the wild horse, and the inhabitants of the oases — are 

 very interesting. A list of the birds brought in by the 

 expedition, which were described by F. D. Pleske in the 

 Melanges Biologiques of the St. Petersburg Academy of 

 Sciences (vol. xiii.), as well as a list of the Lepidopterae 

 collected by the author, complete the volume. Other 

 valuable collections are still in the hands of specialists. 



P. K. 



OUR BOOK SHELF. 



Navigation and Nautical Astronomy. By F. C. Stebbing, 

 Chaplain and Naval Instructor, Royal Navy. Pp. vu 

 -f 328. (London : MacmiUan and Co., Ltd., 1896.) 

 Mr. Stebi-.ing's "Navigation and Nautical Astronomy" 

 is the most satisfactory treatise on the subject we have 

 yet seen. The author's experience, as a man of uiiiver- 

 sity attainments, a naval instructor afloat, and Admirahy 

 examiner at Greenwich, has enabled him to produce a 

 book that meets the practical and theoretical require- 

 ments of the modern navigator without being overladen 

 with perplexing disquisitions or elaborate and unnecessary 

 formute. 



The works we have hitherto come across generally run 

 into one extreme or the other. The first group, of which 



