50 Address. [Feb., 



canal and river-navigation in the peninsula as the best means for amelio- 

 rating the results of seasons of drought. 



Much had been expected from the well-equipped Mission to Tibet 

 under Mr. C. P. Macaulay, and we can only regret that, where all the 

 conditions deserving of success were present, the Mission was not allowed 

 to proceed to Lhasa. In the fourth and last journey of the distinguished 

 Russian traveller, General Prejevalsky, we have, however, added con- 

 siderably to our knowledge of Tibetan geography. He examined the 

 northern border of the great Tibetan plateau, hitherto absolutely un- 

 known, except from the vaguest tradition. In a letter, translated in the 

 Proceedings of the Moyal Geographical Society , General Prejevalsky de- 

 scribes the northern boundary as formed on the east by a range of moun- 

 tains, named by him the Kerian (Keriiski), extending for 107 miles, east 

 to west, between the rivers Keria and Yurun-kash, the latter dividing 

 it from the mountains which continue the chain westward to the Kara- 

 korum. The Kerian range appears as a high, steep, disrupted, wall of 

 mountains, surpassing the snow-line throughout its extent, and in places 

 rising in groups to a height of over 20,000 feet. During the whole time 

 of the stay of the traveller in this lofty belt, rain continued to fall, 

 brought there probably by the Indian monsoon and continuing during 

 the three summer months, being heaviest in July. These rains are 

 said to account for the profusion of glaciers and the existence of 

 pasturage between 9000 and 12,000 feet, on which feed numerous flocks 

 of fine-woolled sheep. 



Mr. H. E. M. James of the Bombay Covenanted Civil Service, 

 accompanied by Mr. F. E. Younghusband and Mr. H. Fulford, has 

 recently made a journey through the Chang-pei-shan mountains of Man- 

 churia, and has visited the sources of the river Sungari, reaching a part 

 not hitherto visited by Europeans. The party leaving Moukden, the 

 capital of southern Manchuria, reached the Pei-shan, or white moun- 

 tain, the highest of the group, and found it to consist of a recently 

 extinct volcano, with a lovely blue pellucid lake filling the bottom of the 

 crater, and surmounted by a serrated circle of peaks rising far above 

 the surface of the water. This lake is about 1J miles across and from 

 six to seven miles in circumference. From its northern end issues a 

 small stream forming the eastern branch of the Sungari, whilst the 

 western branch owes its origin to several streams rising on the south- 

 east face of the Pei-shan. The party returned by another route to 

 Kirin, the capital of central Manchuria, and have proceeded thence to 

 northern Manchuria. Mr. Needham's very interesting account of his 

 journey from Sadiya on the Brahmaputra in Upper Assam to Rima on 

 the Zayal-chu, published in the same Proceedings, seems to establish, 



