66 The American Naturalist. [January, 
Mr. S. E. Peal (Proc. Roy. Geog. Soc. Feb. ’89.) has an interesting 
article upon the origin and orthography of river names in Indo 
China. It seems that the great eastern tributary of the Upper Irawadi 
is spelled in no less than thirteen different ways, and that the Salwin 
has thirteen other designations beside that here given. 
M. Alexandron has determined the height of the Khan Tengri, in 
the Thian Shan, at 23,950 feet. 
= Baron Sternberg and a party recently attempted the ascent of El- 
bruz, but only succeeded in reaching the saddle or depression between 
the two main peaks. Though they spent sixteen hours at a height of 
17,840 feet, they felt no symptoms of mountain sickness. 
The well-known Prof. Schweinfurth was, from Nov. 1838 to March 
1889, in Arabia Felix, with the object of making botanico-geographical 
studies. Travel is safe in Yomen, and the natives are courteous to- 
wards Europeans. The designations ‘‘stair-mountain’’ and “‘step- 
mountain,” both found in old hieroglyphics, refer especially to the 
cultivated terraced slopes of South Arabia, and possess no meaning if 
applied to the Somali country. The ancient Egyptians dedicated 
certain trees to particular deities. Thus the sycamore was sacred to 
Athor, and the fruit of the persea (Mimusops schunperi ), was a gift to 
the gods and to the departed. The persea has for several centuries 
disappeared from Egypt, but the’sycamore still exists there. The persea . 
grows wild in Nomen. : 
M. E. Favec contributes to the August issue of the Proc. Roy. Zool. 
Soc. an account of his explorations on the Upper Gascoyne and Ash- 
burton rivers, in West Australia, The result of the trip was the dis- 
covery of several large tributary rivers running into the Ashburton, 
and on the Gascoyne there are indications of the existence of gold 
reefs, : 
Siberia has a railway from Samara to Oufa, opening up the riches of 
the Ural. 
The three first sheets of the map of Central Asia, published by the 
Russian Government, and containing Lake Baikal, the basin of the 
Amur, and the coast of the Japan sea, have appeared. When com- 
plete this map will have thirty-two sheets, and will represent the entire 
country between the Caspian and the east coast of Asia, on a scale of 
I~1,630,000, 



