152 REPORT—1858. 
geologist, arguing back from effects to cause, rather than the historian, who trusts 
to testimony in preference to facts. He also especially urged that it was important 
to bear in mind what was a true principle in zoology and the natural history sciences, 
and not to trust too exclusively to one characteristic. He did not, he said, believe 
that in ethnology any great discovery would be made, and he thought it was better 
not to attempt to give any opinion as to the question of the unity or the non-unity 
of the human race. 
On the Yang-tse-Keang and the Hwang-ho, or Yellow River. By WiLtiAM 
Locxuanrt, F.R.G.S. Communicated by Dr. Norton Suaw. 
This river, it appeared, was called by the Chinese “ The Girdle of China,” and it 
traversed the whole of the centre of the empire, rolling its flood of water to the sea, 
through the richest and most fertile part of the country. Its importance to China 
could not be too highly estimated, and it might be safely asserted that there was no 
river in the world which had on its banks so numerous a population, amounting to 
at least one hundred millions of people, who were sustained by its waters in the 
pursuits of commerce and agriculture. There were more than 100 cities of the first, 
second, and third classes, and 200 towns and villages which could be approached 
directly from its water-way. From its origin in Tibet to its outlet at the sea, its 
course was about 3000 miles, the points being distant in a direct line 1850 miles, 
and the basin drained by its channel being nearly 800,000 square miles. The com- 
merce of many of the places situate on the borders of the river was very important. 
Persons engaged in every variety of trade resorted to Han-Khow for the exchange of 
their respective commodities ; men from the north and west, from Mongolia to Tibet 
and Sze-chuen, brought their wheat, rice, dried and salted vegetables of every kind, 
bamboo sprouts, horses, sheep, furs, skins, coal, lead, jade or nephrite, gold in large 
quantities, rhubarb, musk, wax, and various drugs of northern growth, and exchanged 
them for tea, silk, camphor, opium, various southern drugs, and above all, for very 
large quantities of Manchester and Leeds goods. The quantity of long cloth and 
cotton goods that passed through Han-Khow was probably more than half of the 
whole brought to China, and access to this spot was of great importance. It had 
long been much desired by merchants that they should be able to inspect personally 
the trade of this place and take part in it, as, from the accounts brought by native 
traders, it would appear to be one of the most important—if not the most important 
—mart in all Asia. The paper referred to other places situate on the river, and de- 
scribed their principal features. 
Extracts from a Letter by Mr. Witt1aM Russetu ¢o the President. 
The President gave some particulars, contained in a letter dated Simla, 24th of 
July, which he had received from Mr. William Russell, the well-known correspond- 
ent of the Zimes, confirming the rumours of the death of M. Adolphe Schlagintweit, 
at Yarkand. He (the Chairman) regretted to say that there was no longer any doubt 
of the death of this adventurous traveller. After penetrating as far as Yarkand, 
where no European had ever been before, he was living in the suburbs of that city 
at a period when a war broke out between the Yarkandese and the Chinese, and he 
was slain by a number of the former, who surrounded his house in the night-time. 
Fortunately the chief portion of his papers would be saved, M. Schlagintweit having 
left them, before proceeding to Yarkand, at a place within the range of British in- 
fluence. His travels were of much importance, as no region so far to the north- 
west of India as Yarkand had been previously visited by a European. M. Schlagint- 
weit and his two brothers had travelled by the authority and at the expense of the 
East India Company. The brothers Hermann and Robert did not penetrate as far 
as Yarkand, and had since returned to Europe; a sketch of their adventurous travels 
across the Karakorum and Kuen Luen chains to the North of the Himalaya having 
been given by Sir Roderick Murchison in his last Anniversary Address to the Royal 
Geographical Society. 
~ oe 
