TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 161 



selected Mr. Douglas Forsyth and Mr. Shaw, as negotiators in the establishment 

 of a treaty of commerce between the respective coimtries; a letter from Mr. 

 Forsyth to myself, wiitten on the eve of his departure from Ladak, on the 2nd 

 of July last, and containing matter of great geographical interest, will be read in 

 the course of this meeting. It will be seen by this letter that, grand as are the 

 geogi'aphical discoveries made Captain Montgomerie and his pundits, a grander 

 and richer field than any yet described seems now to invite exploration. I may 

 add that I have received a letter from the Earl of Mayo, dated the 18th of July 

 last, in which he speaks hopefidly of this important mission. 



On our part, we have thus opened out a market for our Indian teas, and also for 

 many articles of British manufacture, in exchange for which we shall receive not 

 only specie, but also the fine silks and wools of Tm-kistau, and many mineral pro- 

 ducts of those mountains, some of the peaks of which rise to upwards of 24,000 

 feet, and many of whose level tracts and plateaus are 14,000 to 17,000 feet above 

 the sea. To obtain a full insight into the nature of this hitherto unknown region 

 and its remarkable ruler, I refer you to an admirably clear and telling memoir by 

 Mr. Shaw, published in the 'Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society,' 

 June 7, 1870. 



In making these observations, I would invite some of the enterprising merchants 

 of Liverpool, Manchester, and other places in this flourishing county of Lancaster 

 to transmit to Yarkand, via Bombay and the Punjaub, some of their gayest but 

 stoutest cloths and cottons ; and I venture to prophesy that the Turkistaii people 

 will rejoice in the arrival at the remote Yarkand of such British goods, for which 

 they will gladly exchange the products of their own country or pay in specie. 



But, to return to Geography, Mr. Haj^ward, notliing daunted by his first failure, 

 is now endeavouring to explore the mysterious Pamir Land, which no European 

 has ever yet traversed, though Lieutenant Wood of the Indian Navy did, many 

 years ago, reach one extremity of it in an endeavour to determine the source of the 

 Oxus, as recorded in the tenth A-olume of the ' Journal of the Royal Geographical 

 Society.' I earnestly hope that Mr. Hayward will be the first geographer who will 

 have described this lofty region, which the natives term, in their Eastern style, 

 " The Upper Floor of the World." If he should traverse the Pamir Land, I have 

 learned, Dy correspondence with the Russian Imperial Geographical Society, that 

 our countryman will then have a free passage granted to him through all Russian 

 Turkistan. It is thus that our Science makes its cultivators of every nation as 

 kindly and considerate to each other as Freemasons. Let me add tliat the Royal 

 Geographical Society has awarded its Founder's Gold Medal to this brave and 

 energetic man ; and we fervently hope that he wiU come home through Russia 

 before next year, to receive his well-merited reward. 



Dee2}-Sea Soundings. — The remarkable additions to Geographical and Natural- 

 History knowledge which have been made of late years by sounding and dredging 

 at great depths in the ocean, have excited the liveliest interest. The attention of 

 modern geogi'aphers was long ago directed to this subject by Parry, James Ross, 

 and Captain Denham, R.N. The last of these measured downwards in the ocean, 

 between South America and the Cape of Good Hope, to the great depth of 770(5 

 fathoms, and thus enabled geographers to realize the aphorism of Alexander Hum- 

 boldt — that the greatest depths of the sea would be found to be at least equal to 

 the height of the loftiest mountains. Subsequently Dr. "N^^allich, who ably served 

 as the naturalist on board the ' Bulldog,' commanded by Sir Leopold M'Clintock, 

 enunciated the then novel and surprising truth that certain marine animals 

 (including starfish) lived at the depth of 1260 fathoms, and even preserved their 

 colours when brought to the surface. 



More recently the scientific explorations of the deep sea to the north and west 

 of the British Isles, as conducted by Dr. W. Carpenter, Mr. J. Gwyn Jeffi'eys, and 

 Professor Wyville Thomson, have thrown much new light on this attractive 

 subject. They have vastly extended our acquaintance with many submarine data, 

 including the temperatm-e of the sea at various depths, and have proved that 

 currents of difterent temperatures (each containing a characteristic faunci) are 

 running, as it were, alongside of each other, or in contiguity, beneath the surface 

 of tlie sea. 



1870. 11 



