July 3, 1885.] 



SCIENCE, 



19 



Leaviug there liis baggage, he went with only thir- 

 teen men to the sources of the Yellow Elver. The 

 climbing on the 15,700-feet-liigh passage of the 

 Burkhan-budda ridge took three days. The descent, 

 on the contrary, was very short, the plateau of 

 Thibet being there 14,000 to 15,000 feet high. Fur- 

 ther, 60 mik'S across the desert plateau brought the 

 traveller to the sources of the Yellow Kiver. They 

 are 13,600 feet above the sea-level, and consist of 

 two rivers coming from the south and west, and ris- 

 ing in the hills scattered on the plateau. A wide 

 marshy valley, Odon-tala, 40 miles long and 20 miles 

 wide, feeds numerous springs. The Iloang-ho itself 

 is only a rivulet, dividing into two or three branches, 

 each of them but SO to 100 feet wide, and only 2 feet 

 deep at low water. Some 13 miles below this place 

 the Hoang-ho enters a broad lake, coloring its south- 

 ern part with its muddy water; and, after leaving 

 it on the east, it enters again another lake, whence it 

 flows out as a large river; farther down it makes a 

 great curve to avoid the snow-covered Amis-matchin 

 range, and breaks through, in a wild course, the 

 parallel ridges of the Xuen-lun. On the Thibet 

 plateau the expedition experienced dreadful cold. In 

 the second half of May, snow-storms were as strong 

 as in winter, and the night frosts reached — 23° C. 

 Still the thin grass covering did not perish, and a few 

 flowers re-appeared every day under the sun's rays. 

 Even in June and July the thermometer fell, during 

 bright nights, as low as — 5°. As to rain, it poured 

 every day, sometimes several days without interrup- 

 tion. The amount of vapor brought by the south- 

 west monsoon, and deposited there, is so great, that 

 during the summer northern Thibet becomes an im- 

 mense marsh; needless to say, that the advance was 

 difficult for camels. Though uninhabited by man, 

 these deserts were fall of herds of yakes, khoulans, 

 antelopes, and mountain sheep. Even bears were 

 seen in groups, sometimes of more than ten at once. 

 Some thirty pairs were shot down. They are alto- 

 gether very cowardly, and fly even when wounded. 

 After having spent a few days at the source of the 

 Hoang-ho, Prjevalski went south to the Blue Paver, 

 called there Dy-tchou by the Tangoutes. 



— Dr. Stephen Bowers, who is well known to arche- 

 ologists from his extensive collecting in California, 

 has recently described in the Ventura Free press an 

 interesting discovery made by him in a dry cave in 

 the San Martin Mountains, Los Angeles county. 

 The cave was about twelve feet by sixteen. In it 

 were nine baskets from six to twenty inches in diam- 

 eter, made from tule, one of which contained fourteen 

 pieces of red wood about a foot ong, notched, and 

 painted with red and blue in streaks. Some of these 

 sticks had as many as one hundred notches, and each 

 stick was perforated at the ends. Another basket 

 contained thirty-three head-dresses from four to five 

 feet in length, made of feathers; another, forty-five 

 whistles made from the tibiae of deer, the 'stop' 

 being formed by inserting a mass of asphaltum, and 

 the larger end of the bone covered with asphaltum in 

 which is embedded a piece of haliotis shell. The 

 most important objects found were four perforated 



stones mounted on handles of the hard wood of the 

 bearberry, held fast in the holes by asphaltum. The 

 di-<covery of these perforated stones, witli short 

 handles attached, is an important confirmation of F. 

 W. Putnam's conclusions in relation to the probable 

 use of the majority of similar stones, of which hun- 

 dreds have been found in graves in southern Califor- 

 nia. The cave gave no evidence of having been used 

 for any other purpose than as the place of deposit of 

 these articles. Considerable basket-work was discov- 

 ered in the debris, as also a haliotis shell-cup, a shell 

 ornament, an implement made of deer's antler, and a 

 smoothing-iinplement made of serpentine. Xo deter- 

 mination could be arrived at as to the length of time 

 the articles had been in the cave ; but, as it was per- 

 fectly dry, they may have been there for centuries. 



— Nature gives the results of some recent experi- 

 ments by Fol et Sarasin on the depth to which the 

 light of the sun will penetrate into the sea. It will 

 be remembered that in November last they recounted 

 the results of their experiments on the same subject 

 in the Lake of Geneva. The present paper describes 

 similar experiments made in the Mediterranean off 

 the zoological station and harbor of Yillefranche. 

 By means of photographic plates they have proved, 

 that in the month of March, in the middle of a 

 sunny day, the rays of the sun do not penetrate 

 beyond four hundred metres below the surface of the 

 Mediterranean. This is established by seven sepa- 

 rate experiments, at varying depths, and different 

 hours of the morning. At 380 metres, shortly be- 

 fore 11 A.M., the impression on the plate was less 

 than that which would have been left on exposure to 

 the air on a clear night without a moon. Between 

 1.20 and 1.30 p.m., at a depth of from 405 to 420 

 metres, there was no trace of any impression what- 

 ever on the plate. Light clouds do not appear to 

 cause any notable diminution in the depth to which 

 the light penetrates. In the Lake of Geneva the 

 writers also undertook a new series of investigations 

 to determine the effect of the season on the penetra- 

 tion of light. They give 200 metres as the extreme 

 limit for winter in the lake; but they found that there 

 is as much light at 380 metres in the Mediterranean 

 as at 192 metres in the Lake of Geneva; and, by a 

 comparison of these with previous experiments, it 

 appears, the light penetrates from twenty to thirty 

 metres deeper in March than in September : in the 

 month of August, perhaps the difference is a little 

 more. Compared with the series of plates exposed 

 in the lake, those of the Mediterranean are charac- 

 terized by a slower and more regular gradation. This 

 gives rise to the idea, that while in the lake the light 

 would be promptly intercepted by the deeper layers 

 more or less disturbed or muddy, in the Mediterra- 

 nean the absorption proper to pure water would be 

 the principal, if not the sole, factor in arresting the 

 luminous rays. 



— One of the questions for discussion at the Sani- 

 tary congress at Rome was the measures to be adopted 

 in regard to vessels from the east when they arrive 

 in Mediterranean ports. Dr. Proust, the French 



