720 General Notes. | November, 
GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVELS.' 
Asta.—Col. Prejevalsky, after being detained at Zaisan on the 
Chinese frontier by deep snows, left there on the 21st of March 
last, and passing over a barren desert and along the river Urungu 
had reached, when last heard from, the river Buguluk in the 
Southern Altai mountains. The climate is characterized by frost 
start shortly for Lhassa by way of the Koko-Nor. 
M. Woéikof has sent to the French Geographical Society a 
memoir on the Oxus question. After having studied the prob- 
lem on the spot, the Russian geographer feels certain that the 
suppression of the Caspian mouth was produced not by a gradual 
elevation of the country, but by an accumulation of deposits 1n 
development of irrigation in the Khivan oasis. He feels certain — 
that the restoration of the former state of things would be a very — 
easy work. The restoration of the Caspian, he believes, would 
reduce the area of the Aral to one-third of its present extent, nor 
would the change be altogether detrimental to the prosperity © 
the surrounding countries. When the countries situated between 
the Caspian and Aral basins shall have become civilized and have 
utilized for agricultural purposes the waters of all the rivers 
which feed the interior seas, the Aral ,will exist no longer, and — 
the Caspian will be reduced to two lakes of nearly elliptical form. . 
The Volga will be joined to the Oxus by a straight canal passing 
by the eastern side of the Caspian, and its vessels will reach, 
without transhipment, the northern part of Afghanistan. a 
_ In the discussion that followed the reading of this paper, M. 
1 Edited by Extis H. YARNALL, Philadelphia. oo 
