1889.] Geography and Travel. 807 
tains that skirt 300 miles of the railway, are in Russian hands. The rail- 
way will doubtless ultimately be extended to Tashkent, the Russian 
capital of Central Asia, 190 miles northeast of Samarcand. According 
to General Aurankoff, the constructive engineer of the Trans-Caspian 
Railway, there is no reason why a considerable portion of Transcaspia 
cannot be reclaimed for agriculture. A broad belt of loess, interrupted 
with sands in a few places only, stretches from Kyzylarvat to Askabad 
along the foot of the Kopet-dagh, and further east along the Abrek. 
Chemical analysis proves it identical with that of China. The Tur- 
comans, who are the worst of agriculturists, get at Merv a return of 170 
to I. The barkans or sandhills are naturally covered with vegetation, 
among which the saksau is the best plant, and this and other plants 
have increased rapidly near the railway since the prohibition to cut 
bushes within three miles of the line. At Merv, in the last three 
months of 1885 and the first four of 1886, sixty-five inches of rain, 
above the average of Great Britain, was recorded. But there are no 
summer rains, and thus irrigation is necessary, and with the Amu 
Daria at Chardjui 27 miles wide, and flowing dyi miles an hour, an 
irrigation canal sems quite possible. 
The D'Entrecasteaux Islands. — The Louisiade and D'Entre- 
casteaux islands form the subject of a long article in the Proc. Roy. 
Geog. Soc. for September of this year by B. H. Thomson. The natives 
of Rossel look like hybrids between Papuans and Solomon Islanders. 
Short, robust, and sooty brown, with wide ncjstrils, flat nose, and prog- 
nathous face, they seem to be in a low state of savagery. The men's 
dress consists of a single pandanus leaf secured round the waist by a 
cord of human hair. The women wear grass petticoats. The cartilage 
of the nose is bored, and that of the ear enlarged, but tattooing is not 
practised. Stone axes have been discarded for iron blades picked up 
from wrecks, and inserted in stone axe handles. The pig and the 
dingo are the only domestic animals. Rossel is well timbered, and 
net is flat, with a semi-circle of hills on the soutlieast. St. Aignan 
range 3500 feet high, and no l)arrier reef. 
Normanby Island is an L-shaped range of mountains, not exceeding 
ten to twelve miles in width anywhere, and containing about 350 
square miles. There is much schistose slate with quartz veins, and in 
the north there is limestone, basalt, and porphyry. The natives are 
characteristically Papuan in dress and person. This island is the eastern 
