1889.] Address. 83 



botanical collections which have been made over to the Natural History 

 Museum at Genoa. 



Hydrography of South Eastern Tibet. — There has been considerable 

 discussion in the Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, and the 

 Bulletin of the French SociSte de Geographie, on the subject of the 

 River systems of S. E. Tibet and the sources of the Lohit Brahmaputra 

 and Irawadi. In a note " on the Hydrography of S. E. Tibet," which 

 appears iu the former, General "Walker, C. B., our late Surveyor- General, 

 refutes the theory brought forward by M. Dutreuil de Rhins that 

 the sources of the Irawadi lie in Central Tibet to the west of the basin 

 of the Lu ; that the Kenpou, or Gakbo dsangpo, is the principal 

 source of the Irawadi, and that a cluster of smaller rivers flowing 

 northwards between the Kenpou and the Lu are its minor sources ; 

 and he shows that no Tibetan river west of the Lu can possibly be the 

 source of the Irawadi; that most probably the Kenpou is the upper 

 course of the Dibong and is joined by the Nagong Chu a little above the 

 point where it enters the Himalaya mountains to make its way across 

 them into Assam. 



The erroneous nature of M. Dutreuil de Rhin's principal conten- 

 tion, that the Kenpou passes between Sadiya and Rima on its way to 

 join the Irawadi, is proved by the result of Mr. J. F. rTeedham's journey 

 along the Lohit Brahmaputra between these two points, of which a very 

 complete account has recently been published in the Supplementary 

 Papers of the B. G. S. (Vol II, Part 3), together with a good deal of in- 

 formation on the subject of former attempts to penetrate the Mishmi 

 country by Wilcox, Griffith, Rowlatt and the French Missionaries 

 Krick and Boury, who were murdered at Same. 



The geographical information gathered by Mr. Needham regarding 

 the source of the Brahmaputra entirely corroborates the report of the 

 Pandit A.-K, who visited the head waters of both its branches which 

 unite close to Rima. Mr. Needham saw the gorges of both these 

 streams. The easterly one, the La ti, is called the Zayul Chu by the 

 Pandit, and the westerly, the Mi Chu, or Rong Thod Chu, is said to rise 

 at a distance of 15 marches from Rima, in the same range as another 

 river which flows away west into the Abor country and is, in fact, 

 that eastern affluent of the Dihong called the Nagong Chu. Mr. 

 Keedham's discovery of the identity of the river of Rima with the 

 Brahmaputra also settles the doubtful question of the identity of the 

 Sanpo with the Dihong, because we know from the Pandit that the 

 Sanpo does not go into Burma round the soui^ces of the Rima river and 

 can therefore only go into the Dihong, for which there is also the 

 evidence of the Mishmis, and it may now be accepted as a fact. 



