May 7, 1885 | 
NAT CRE 
A 
GEOGRAPHICAL education in Sweden has for years left much 
to be desired, but of late steps have been taken for its improve- 
ment. Intheso-called ‘‘ Elementiar-larovarken” (classical schools) 
ceography has hitherto been classed as an appendix to history, 
and at the ‘‘ Lektor” (candidate) examinations in history and 
geography questions are only asked about the former study. 
And while the hours and parts of history-teaching in the schools 
are detailed, no such arrangement has been made as regards 
geography ; the hours of teaching are, in some cases, even not 
fixed. However, at the congress of teachers held in Stockholm 
last year, a resolution was adopted to the effect that geography 
ought to form a separate study of the school education. The 
University of Lund is the only institution which possesses an 
eminent geographer for this Board of Science, viz. Baron von 
Schverin, who, last year, represented Sweden at the Geogra- 
phical Congress in Toulouse. 
TuE last Annual Report of the Russian Geographical Society 
contains extracts from letters addressed by M. Prjevalsky to the 
Grand Duke Alexander Alexandrovitch, which contains some 
further interesting details about his Hoang-ho journey. About 
the end of May he reached, as known, the foot of the Burkhan- 
budda Mountains, which inclose the high Thibet plateau sepa- 
rating it from Tsaidam. Leaving there his baggage, he went 
with only thirteen men to the sources of the Yellow River. The 
climbing on the 15,700 feet high passage of the Burkhan-budda 
ridge took three days. The descent, on the contrary, was very 
short, the plateau of Thibet being there 14,coo to 15,000 feet 
high. Further 60 miles across the desert plateau brought the 
traveller to the sources of the Yellow River. They are 13,600 
feet above the sea-level, and consist of two rivers coming from 
the south and west and rising in the hills scattered on the plateau. 
A wide marshy valley, Odon-tala, 40 miles long and 20 miles 
wide, feeds numerous springs. The Hoang-ho itself is only a 
rivulet dividing into two or three branches, each of them but 80 
to too feet wide, and only 2 feet deep at low water. Some 13 
miles below this place the Hoang-ho enters a broad lake, 
colouring its southern part with its muddy water, and, after 
leaving it on the east, it enters again another lake, whence it 
flows out as a large river; further down it makes a great curve 
to avoid the snow-covered Amis-matechin range, and breaks 
through, in a wild course, the parallel ridges of the Xuen-lun. 
On the Thibet plateau the expedition experienced dreadful cold. 
In the second half of May snow-storms were as strong as in 
winter, and the night frosts reached —23° Celsius. Still the 
thin grass covering did not perish and a few flowers reappeared 
every day under the sun-rays. Even in June and July the ther- 
mometer fell during bright nights as low downas —5°. Asto rain, 
it poured every day, sometimes several days without interruption. 
The amount of vapour brought by the south-west monsoon and 
deposited there is so great that, during the summer, Northern 
Thibet becomes an immense marsh. Needless to say that 
the advance was difficult for camels. Though uninhabited 
by man, these deserts were full of herds of yakes, khoulans, 
antelopes, and mountain sheep; even bears were seen in 
groups, sometimes of more than ten at once; some thirty 
pairs were shot down; they are altogether very cowardly, 
and fly even when wounded. After having spent a few days at 
the source of the Hoang-ho, M. Prjevalsky went south to the 
Blue River, called there Dy-tchou by the Tangoutes. The 
plateau remained hilly, mostly covered with marshes, where the 
Thibet rush, hard as iron wire, grows freely. The water-divide 
between the two rivers has an altitude of 14,500 feet. Further 
south the region takes the characters of an Alpine country, still 
devoid of forests, but with a richer and more varied grass vege- 
tation. Tangoutes, of the Kam branch, were met with, and 
received the travellers, though not friendlily, yet not as enemies. 
Some 70 miles across a mountain region brought M. Prjevalsky 
to the Dy-tchou River, at an altitude of 12,700 feet. The river, 
deep and very rapid, is 350 to 420 feet wide. To ford it with 
camels was quite impossible, so that a further advance to the 
south had to be renounced. So it was decided to stay there a 
week and then return to explore the great lakes of the Hoang-ho. 
During this stay the Tangoutes fired once from the opposite bank 
of the Dy-tchou. Returning to the Hoang-ho, M. Prijevalsky 
took another route to reach the lakes of this river, finding his 
way without guides. ‘The Tangoutes closely followed the party, 
and on July 13 suddenly attacked them. This attack, as also 
another one, were repulsed, and the only further difficulties were 
in the rains and snow-storms (end of July). On the southern 
foot of the Burkhan-budda Mountains a party of gold-washers 
was met with. They did not dig the soil deeper than one or 
two feet, and their washing was most primitive. Still they 
showed handfuls of gold, mostly in corns as large as a pea, or 
twice and thrice the size. After having thus laid over more 
than 670 miles the party returned to Tsaidam, which appeared 
to them, as desert as it is, a real Eldorado in comparison with 
the Thibet plateau. 
BESIDES the special medals awarded to M. Woeikoff and M. 
N. J. Zinger, the other medals of the Russian Geographical: 
Society have been awarded as follows :—Small gold medals to 
the members of the last Pamir expedition, Col. Putyata; M. 
Ivanoff, geologist ; and M. Bendersky, topographer, as also to 
M. Gavriloff for a manuscript on the religious beliefs of the 
Votyaks, and to Prof. Zomakion for magnetic measurements at 
Kazan. The great gold medals were awarded this year by the 
Sections of Ethnography and Statistics to M. Shein for his 
‘* Materials for the Study of the Customs and Language of the 
Russian Population in the North-West Provinces of Russia,” 
and to M. Yanjul on the manufactures of the Government of 
Moscow. Sixteen silver medals have been awarded for several 
papers published in the publications of the Society, for observa- 
tions extended over more than ten years on thunderstorms and 
rainfall, to those students who helped Prof. Zomakion in his 
magnetic measurements, and so on. 
THE eccentricities of the European nomenclature of distant 
regions is well exemplified in the case of the eastern portion of 
the Indo-Chinese peninsula to which so much attention is 
attracted just now by the political events in progress there. On 
some English maps we find four separate divisions: starting 
from the north, Tonquin placed next to China; then Annam ; 
then Cochin-China, and finally French Cochin-China. In the 
map accompanying Mr. Colquhoun’s recent work, ‘* Amongst 
the Shans,” territory inhabited by independent tribes is inserted 
between Tonquin and China, which gives five divisions, This 
latter, however, is wholly incorrect, as the Tonquin frontier 
proper marches with that of China. In other maps (chiefly in 
those published in France) Annam and Cochin-China are thrown 
in together and called indifferently Annam or Cochin-China ; 
while in others, mainly those of from ten to twenty years old, 
the whole coast from the Chinese frontier to the French colony 
of Saigon is called sometimes Cochin-China, sometimes Annam, 
We derive the name Cochin-China from tke early navigators, 
who applied it to the whole coast round from Siam to China ; 
and various generations, in search of trade rather than of geo- 
graphical accuracy, have added to the confusion. Since the 
beginning of the present century, when the rulers of Annam 
imposed their yoke on Tonquin, there has been only one 
political power on this coast, viz. Annam. As the territories of 
this State stood twenty-five years ago, it was bounded by China, 
the Shan States, Siam, Cambodia, and the ocean, and, with the 
exception that France obtained three small States at the extreme 
south in 1861, so it stands at present. Tonquin was a feudatory 
State of Annam when the present war broke out. In a history 
of Annam recently published by Abbé Launay, a missionary in 
these regions, we find his title-page runs thus: “ Histoire 
Ancienne et Moderne de l’Annam—Tong-King et Cochin-Chine 
—depuis, &c., &c.;” and in some interesting preliminary 
observations on these names, he explains that the titles Tonquin 
and Cochin-China are relatively recent, and are employed only 
by Europeans, and never by the Annamites. Tonquin comes 
to us from Dong-kinh, formerly the name of the capital, now 
called Hanoi; while Cochin-China comes from Chen-chin, the 
name given to the ancient State of Ciampa, situated to the 
extreme south of the peninsula. C/en-chin was_ probably pre- 
ceded at one time by Cao, an abbreviation of Cao-tchi (Grao- 
chi), and from Cao-chen-chin Enropeans have made Cochin- 
China. The name Annam was first given by the Chinese in the 
third century of our era, Tt was never used in the official docu- 
ments between the two countries, but it is that by which the 
Annamites now call their country. It was at first applied to 
Tonquin only, but it was extended by conquest to Cochin- 
China, the ancient Ciampa. It should not, says Abbé Launay, 
be used for Cochin-China as distinct from Tonquin, but to the 
two united. The term Giao-chi, above alluded to, was that 
employed in the earliest epochs for the people inhabiting 
Annam, and was extended to the country. Their historians 
record that when the Emperor of China, Hoang-ti, formed the 
Chinese Empire in the twenty-sixth century before our era, he 
took Giao-chi as his boundary in the south-west. An ancient 
