1884.] Geography and Travels. 1251 
_ upon the slopes of Mount Kabru, a pair of snow-white hawks 
were seen flying as easily as at lower levels. The ascent of 
_ Kabru is the highest yet accomplished by man. In the discus- 
_ sion which followed the reading of Mr. Graham's paper, it was 
elicited that the two unnamed peaks near Mount Everest had 
__ been seen before by native surveyors. 
Asiatic Nores.—There is no satisfactory evidence, according 
= to Professor R. Lenz, that the Oxus flowed into the Caspian be- 
_ fore the thirteenth century, as the Arabian geographers of the 
ninth century, who have been qucted in proof of this connection, 
appear to have confounded the Caspian with the Aral. It is known 
_ that the river had two branches in the thirteenth and fourteenth 
_ centuries, but the branch emptying into the Caspian probably 
_ ceased flowing in the sixteenth century. This agrees with Tur- 
= Coman traditions. In 1850 and 1869, during great floods, the 
_ Waters of the Amu Darya penetrated into Lake Sara Kamysh. 
The level of the Caspian is slowly but steadily falling, and the 
_ ltesh-water seals are fast diminishing in number. A recent 
_ Wsue of Petermann's Mittheilungen contains a map showing the 
Toute pursued by A. Regels in his journey through Darwas in 
_ the last months of 1883. The Chingan, a tributary of the Oxus, 
Was followed almost to its source in the Garma glacier. Mr. 
a Holt Hallett has returned to Bangkok after a successful expe- 
dition to the Shan States, during which he has surveyed over 
1500 miles of route, determined the position of the Shan ranges, 
i Persian boun- 
Hungen contains a map of Merv and of the Russo- 
aries in the vicinity, with the routes of the Russian engineer, = 
M. essar. Between Askabad ‘and Sarakhs the distance 1s 2 
Russia until the Borchut range, a continuation of the Paropamissus, 
S reached. Pico moata form the northern boundary of 
Atghazistan, and the Russian frontier reaches to within ener 
m Miles of Herat, Merv was formerly erroneously supposed to 
1900 feet above the sea, but is really only 800. 
vou, XVIII.—nxo, XIL 79 
