172 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XV. No. 371 



ricliness and fertility to the soil ; but with the decrease of popu- 

 lation the sand drifted over the cultivated fields, and now covers 

 them to the depth of six to twelve inches. Pi-jevalsky describes 

 the "lake-dwellers of Lob Nor:" "Their food consists chiefly 

 of fish, fresh in summer, dried in winter. They eat neither 

 bread nor meat on account of its scarcity." The people are 

 changed so little from the picture history has given of therfl, that 

 Prjevalsky's description sounds like an echo of the most ancient 

 Chinese records. 



The eastern part of Mongolia is the Desert of Gobi or Hanka 

 ("a dry sea"). It is a rocky, desolate region, with wells and 

 small oases scattered tlu-ough it. The routes across the desert 

 follow the lines of the wells. Marco Polo says it would take a 

 year or more to ride from one end of it to the other. 



The Mongolian of to-day is the living representative and de- 

 scendant of the ancient Huns and the more ancient Scythians. 

 From Mongolia came the vast hordes that overran Asia and Eu- 

 rope. Their greatest leaders were Genghis Klian and Tamer- 

 lane. 



In the twelfth century Genghis Khan conquered the eastern 

 part of Asia and Turkestan. Two hundred years after him came 

 Tamerlane, the last of the great conquerors, who carried his con- 

 quests into Persia and India, and even into Europe. They 

 boasted that the grass never grew where the feet of their horses 

 had ti-od, and that a horse might run without stumbling over the 

 places where great cities had stood. The Mongols were power- 

 ful only under their gi-eat leaders. As soon as the despotic rule 

 was withdrawn, they were broken up into separate families and 

 tribes. To restrain the Mongols, the Chinese Wall was built; 

 but it did not prevent them from conquering China and ascend- 

 ing the throne. 



The Pamir, with the Himalayas on the south and the Thian- 

 Shan on the north, foiTns an impassable barrier between eastern 

 and western Asia. But some 300 or 400 miles north of the Pamir 

 there are three valleys near the 46th parallel of latitude, which 

 afford the only accessible route. Through these valleys caravans 

 go from China to Russia ; and for hundreds of years the great 

 hordes of Huns, Mongols, and Tartars poured through these 

 passes into the fertile valleys of Turkestan, forcing the inhabit- 

 ants of those regions into Europe. 



TJiibet. 



The southern part of the high plateau of Asia is called Tliibet. 

 It is bounded on the east by the Pamir, north by the Kuen-lun 

 Mountains, and south by the Himalayas. It is the highest pla- 

 teau in the world. At the Pamir its elevation is about 15,000 

 feet, falling to 11,000 feet at its eastern side. Snow-clad moun- 

 tains shut it in on every side, and cut it off from the rest of the 

 world. It is a cold, rocky country, dry and barren, hardly 

 affording nourishment to its scanty population. The people are 

 poor, and peculiar as their land The men are unable to main- 

 tain separate families, and one wife sufiioes for two or three 

 brothers. Here, as in a few other poor countries, polyandry is 

 practised, the surplus females being sustained at public expense 

 in the nunneries. The French-Catholic missionaries in Thibet 

 tell us that the population is about 4,000,000; that the moun- 

 tains run through the country from west to east, with deep 

 valleys or caiions between them. 



Gold is found in most of the rivers, and there are also mines 

 of gold, silver, and copper. The government is a despotism. 

 We are told that one of the early rulers of Thibet ordered an 

 equal distribution of property among all the people; but the 

 property was soon in the possession of the former owners, while 

 the poor were poorer than ever. This experiment was repeated 

 three times with similar results. 



China. 



China is situated east of Thibet. The lands trend toward the 

 east, the high mountains of Thibet become lower, and from the 

 foot-hills low plains extend to the Pacific Ocean. 



The population of China is 400,000,000, — more than one-fourth 

 of the world. The number of inhabitants to the square mile is 

 greater than in any other country. This vast population is sup- 



ported by the two great rivers, the Hoang-Ho and Yang-tse-kiang, 

 which run tlu-ough the whole length of China, and by the great 

 tracts of rich yellow earth called loess. The land is highly cul- 

 tivated, and well watered by irrigating-canals, which carry the 

 water of the rivers to all parts of the country. The loess is a 

 solid but friable earth of a brownish-yellow color, and spreads 

 alike over high and low lands, extending over a tract of country 

 larger than France, and, whether on a plain or at an elevation 

 of 7,000 or 8,000 feet, is available for agricultural pursuits. 

 This region is called Hoang-Lu (or ' 'Yellow Land' ' ) ; and the 

 river that runs through it, Hoang-Ho (or ' 'Yellow River' ' ) . Its 

 origin and constituent parts have long been a subject of inquiry. 

 Richthofen, and our own Pumpelly, describe the loess as hun- 

 dreds and even thousands of feet in thickness, an almost impal- 

 pable calcareous and silicious loam, so soft as to be easily crushed 

 in the hand ; and yet its consistency is such that it will support 

 itself for many years in vertical cliffs 200 feet high. These 

 plains have been cultivated for four thousand years by irrigation, 

 without requiring any fertilizer. 



Richthofen believes that the loess was a sub-aerial deposit 

 without the intervention of water. The products of disintegra- 

 tion from the mountains and steppes, instead of being carried 

 seaward, were blown from the hills into the valleys of a treeless 

 continent. Grass and heather grew, only to be covered again 

 and again by the deposits. This covering nourished the new 

 vegetation, while the decay of the old produced the capillary 

 tubes which give to this material its vertical sti'ucture and 

 strength. An immense quantity of land-snails and the bones of 

 land animals have been discovered in the loess, but no traces of 

 marine or fresh-water life. 



Great perpendicular cliffs rise in many places 500 feet in 

 height. In these cliffs caves have been dug in which it is said 

 several millions of people live. The same formation is found in 

 some parts of Europe and in the Mississippi valley, and was 

 formerly supposed to have been a sub-aerial deposit ; but three of 

 our geologists in different localities followed the beds of loess to 

 their source in the terminal moraines of ancient glaciers, and 

 proved that the loess is the fine white dust or powder produced 

 by the grinding of the glaciers over the gTOund, which has been 

 carried down by the streams. Some of our ablest geologists be- 

 lieve the loess of China was formed in a similar way. 



Japan. 



Japan consists of four large and four thousand small islands. 

 It extends from the Sea of Okhotsk 1,800 miles to the southern 

 part of Corea. The Gulf Stream of the Pacific bathes the south- 

 eastern coast of Japan, and there the climate is warm and equa- 

 ble. The north coast is cold and disagreeable, the wind blowing 

 from Siberia and the cold waters of the Arctic Ocean, which 

 gives to this part of Japan a climate more like that of northern 

 America than that of Europe in the same latitudes. 



A chain of volcanic mountains runs the whole length of Japan, 

 and occupies seven-tentlis of the islands. There are no rivers, 

 but many ton-ents rush down from the mountains in the wet 

 season and after every storm. The earliest inhabitants of Japan 

 were the Ainos, who at that time probably occupied all the 

 islands. As a race, they are inferior to the Japanese. They are 

 gradually retiring before their superior civilization, and are now 

 confined to the remote districts, where they live by hunting and 

 fishing. The Japanese are of the Mongolian type, resembling the 

 Coreans and the former inliabitants of Siberia rather than the 

 Chinese. Their early civilization seems to have come from 

 Corea. 



In some parts of the islands they have intermarried with the 

 Ainos, while in the southern portions there are traces of the 

 Polynesian race. Formerly and for many centuries the Mikado 

 ruled with despotic power ; but in the seventh century the Sho- 

 gTins, or military rulers, seized the conti-ol, and held it until 

 1868, when they were deposed by the people and the Mikado re- 

 stored, but with only a portion of his former power. At that 

 time, after a sleep of centuries, Japan awoke in a day, and, in- 

 dependent of outside influences, tlu-ew off tlie rule of the old 

 oligarchy, established a government largely representative in its 



