Sis 
1887] Geography and Travels. 363 
tary of the Murghab seems to communicate with the lake by an 
underground channel, but the Kashgar River does not, as was 
stated by Hwang-Tsang, communicate with the lake. It is said 
Cheragh-Tash, or “ lamp-rock,” a rock about one hundred feet 
high near the water’s edge. A light, probably phosphorescent, 
burns in this cave, Kir is said to be the sparkle of the diamond 
in the dragon’s fore 
Japan.—The very siiiebiniteas account of the physical geogra- 
phy of Japan, with remarks upon its people, contributed by Dr. 
E 
Japan, is itself too condensed to be capable of eon net con- 
i N 
the Tuscavera basin to the altitude of F ee ago (12,425 feet). 
These mountains are a vast earth-wave, the advanced frontier of 
Asia, igneous but not volcanic, since ioy pia a very hum- 
ble part, and fossils of the remotest periods are met with. The 
“ Radiolarian slate” is Palæozoic. The angle of descent of the 
oe is about 3°. The Japanese chain consists of a long 
series of folds, running, as a rule, in the same direction as the 
chain, but towards ae northeastward curving hook-like towards 
the Japan Sea. West of Tokio is a great transversal cleft or 
fissure in which even volcanoes, including Fujinoyama, have 
sprung up. The folds seem to have advanced from the Sea of 
Japan towards the ocean, but the great fissure resulted fom their 
encounter with another chain stretching from Tokio Bay to the 
Bonin Islands. Dr. Naumann writes as one enchanted by the 
beauty of Japanese scenery, and has much admiration for the 
people, though his estimate of the Japanese house is more 
matter-of-fact than that of Professor Morse. Farmhouses have 
a hole for the smoke of the fire to escape, as was the case in 
England in Saxon times and later, and even rich Japanese feel 
at home in small and perishable structures. 
ArFGHanistan.—Afghanistan is still so far an unknown country 
that Captains Maitland and Talbot found a well-defined aoe 
tract filling up the whole space between the Hindu-Kush and the 
high mountains about the sources of the Hari-rud and Murghab. 
This range runs east and west at a distance of from five to twelve 
miles from the towns of Tashkurgan, Mazar-i-sharif (now the cap- 
ital of Afghan Turkestan), and Balkh. It is hardly indicated on 
any map, and is not mentioned by apia travellers. The Ha- 
zanahs are a simple, good-natured people 
Astatic Notes.—M. Tchersky has published at St. Petersburg 
a geological map of the borders of Lake Baikal. 
The Russian Geographical Society has appointed a committee 
