February 16, 1883. 



SCIENCE. 



49 



ficult; the resting-stations were miserable places, 

 often supplied with bad water from their springs. 

 A few antelope were seen on the way. 



Zo-zung-tang's army consisted of 2, .500 men, who 

 crossed the desert in divisions of .500 so as not to 

 ■exhaust the water-supply on the way: they had not 

 been paid for ten months, and their plundering made 

 their advance like an enemy's invasion. But at 

 Hami the people rejoiced at the coming of the holy 

 general, for since his arrival it rained as it had not 

 for a long time before. Moreover, he had posted 

 orders that all brawlers and opium-dealers should 

 be beheaded, all impostors should be punished with 

 3,000 lashes and should then have their ears bcred 

 with a lance, and he advised the people to let the 

 soldiers have nothing till they had paid for it. Hanii 

 lies at tlie southei'n foot of the eastern extension 

 of the Tian-san, at an elevation of 960 met., with 

 a broad, well-watered pasture-land stretching thirty 

 miles before it to the desert. Its population is 1,.500- 

 1,800 (Sosnowski said 10,000) besides a garrispn of 

 3,000. [On Stieler's Atlas, sheet 64, XSSI, Ansifan is 

 given as Ngansi Fan tcheu. and is placed in latitude 

 39° 40', or more than 50 miles too far south accord- 

 ing to these data.] — ( Peter in. niitlh., 1882, 416, map. ) 



W. M. D. [129 



Russo-Persiau boundary and Merv. — F. v. 



Stein gives a map and description of the most recent 

 work on the region stretching eastward from the 

 southern end of the Caspian toward the oasis of 

 Merv. A railroad was completed in 18S1 from Mi- 

 chailow on the Caspian, south-easterly to Kysyl- 

 Arvat (about 130 miles) ; and it is now proposed to 

 extend this along the inhabited strip of land between 

 the Kopet Mountains and the Kara Kum (desert) to 

 Askhabad, and perhaps to Seraks on the Tedjend 

 (Heri-Rnd river). With this object the Russian en- 

 gineer Lessar has examined the route, and finds it 

 one of very easy grades and construction, for the 

 transition country between mountain and desert is 

 very flat throughout. Levelling showed a depression 

 below the level of the CasiJian, about midway on 

 the present railroad; and this is suspected to con- 

 tinue eastward, in which case the Tedjend and 

 Mm-gab could not in former times have reached the 

 old course of the Oxus, but must after their junc- 

 tion have flowed to the Caspian independently: now 

 they are both lost in the sands of ttie Kara Kum. 

 The people along the surveyed line gladly accept the 

 present Russian and Persian government of their 

 country, as a guard against the robbing Tekke tribes. 

 The forts or walled towns contain a single street for 

 the bazaars; from this, crooked, narrow, dirty alleys, 

 often shut apart by doors, lead among the mud-huts, 

 the only kind of habitation. In the fields at a dis- 

 tance from the forts, are scattered watch-towers with 

 entrances so small that one must creep through 

 them : the laborers hid themselves in these, blocking 

 up the doorway, on the first appearance of a band of 

 Tekke robbers, and there waiting till they had passed 

 by. In the present better times, the towers are not 

 needed. The former population must have been 

 much larger than the present, for ruins are numer- 

 ous; but the people have no traditions about their 

 builders. Fields are cultivated only where irrigated ; 

 and on the larger rivers, Tedjend and Murgab, 

 dams are constructed to feed numerous branching 

 canals. The districts thus cared for have been much 

 reduced in area in consequence of the plundering of 

 the Tekke bands: the people have been driven off, 

 and tlie canals are fallen into decay. [The question 

 of the less supply of water is not considered.) 



The oasis of Merv, as described by O'Donovan, 



an English 'correspondent,' contains a dense popu- 

 lation, variously estimated from two to five hundred 

 thousand, gathered in numerous villages, but without 

 any central city. Since 1857, it has been in the 

 power of the Tekke-Turcomans, who were then 

 driven from Seraks on the Tedjend by the Persians. 

 They are hospitable; but they are also cruel, deceit- 

 ful, lying robbers. The men are poor workers ; but 

 the carpets, silks, and especially the silk embroideries, 

 made by the women, are celebrated throughout Central 

 Asia. The oasis is watered by the Murgab, which 

 is raised by a dam, then divided into two arms, these 

 into forty-eight branches, and finally into lutndreds of 

 canals: all these are under the control of the Tekke, 

 who rent their use to the under tribes of the district. 

 The possibility of Russian advance to this point is a 

 question of much importance for the future of Cen- 

 tral Asia. — (Peterm. mittheil., 1882, 360, map.) [In , 

 this connection may be mentioned the accounts of 

 Lessar's exijlorations in Proc. roy. geogr. soc, iv., 

 1882, 486; v., 1883, 1; and of O'Donovan's, id., iv., 

 1882, 345; and his book. The Merv oasis, London, 

 1882.1 w. M. D. [130 



BOTANY. 



(Structural and physiological.) 



New apparatus for respiration experiments. 

 — This consists of a measitred flask holding upon 

 moist paper the seedlings under examination, and 

 connected with a supply of oxygen in a balanced 

 eudiometer. The evolved carbonic acid is absorbed 

 by potassic hydrate in a small receptacle suspended 

 within to the cork of the flask. The amount of 

 oxygen consumed can be read off on the balanced 

 eudiometer, which sinks in a bath of mercury as its 

 contents disappear ; the carbonic acid produced is 

 ascertained from the potassic carbonate, and from 

 subsequent treatment of the air in the flask at the 

 close of the trial, by means of baric hydrate. A 

 possible objection to this aj)paratus is the fact, that 

 some time must elapse after it is arranged before the 

 temperature of the flask and eudiometer can be 

 precisely that of the surrounding air. Professor 

 Godlewski has, however, found this error to be in 

 point of fact unimportant. — {Bot. zeit., Nov. 24, 

 1882.) G. I.. G. [131 



Basipetal development of leaves. — Trecul 

 gives an account of the sequence in which the first 

 vessels appear in Cruciferae, asserting that thereby 

 his views as to the basipetal development of leaves 

 are confirmed. — (Comptes rendus, Dec. 4, 1882.) 

 a. L. G. [132 



The structure of the leaves of heath. — Ernst 

 Ljungstrom divides the species of Erica into four 

 groups depending on the shape and microscopic an- 

 atomy of the leaves. Three types are, E. cupressina, 

 E. striata, and Calluna vulgaris. A fourth group com- 

 prises most of the Ericae proper. — {Bot. notiser, 1882, 

 178) G. L. G. [133 



Dispersion of Utrioularia intermedia. — A few 

 plants were thrown into a swamp at Oeleghem (Bel- 

 gium ) where the water was shallow. By the following 

 year the species had covered several ares. Last 

 March, M. Gilbert observed on the surface of the 

 water minute vesicles blown hither and thither by 

 the winds, and so abundant in amount as to have the 

 appearance of green velvet. These proved to be de- 

 tached bulblets of Utricularia intermedia formed of 

 whorls of rudimentary leaves on an extremely short 

 axis (see Gray's Manual, under Utricularia). After 

 the development of the axis the air, hitherto en- 

 tangled in the leaves, escapes, and the bulblet sinks 

 to the bottom, where it speedily develops roots. M. 



