February 12, 1866.] 



SCIEXCE. 



137 



in nine years, showing the same ratio of increase 

 with our population, and that the books copy- 

 righted in America exceed those copyrighted in 

 Great Britain. 



These figures prove conclusively that the cheap 

 foreign literature has increased the demand for 

 American books by enlarging the circle of read- 

 ers and cultivating a taste for reading ; that an 

 international copyright must, as all its advocates 

 admit, increase the price of foreign books, cut off 

 the supply of cheap literature, and thereby check 

 the growing desire for reading : that it would 

 therefore be a tax on knowledge, and would 

 neither be for the interests of the people nor of 

 the American authors, and will not promote 

 science and the useful arts. 



Gardiner G. Hubbard. 



A XEW ROUTE TO SOUTH-WESTERS 

 CHIXA. 



Mr. Holt S. Halletts studies and explorations 

 have revolutionized our ideas with regard to the 

 geography of Indo-China. It was only six years 

 ago that Archibald Ross Colquhoun was an un- 

 known engineer in the public works department 

 of British Burmah. He became interested in the 

 geography of Indo-China, and accompanied an 

 expedition sent by the Indian government to 

 Zimme in northern Siam. The information 

 gathered on that journey is embodied in his 

 ■ Amongst the Shans.' This trip only whetted his 

 appetite for adventure, and in the winter of 1881-82 

 he crossed southern China from Canton to Man- 

 dalay. His intention had been to connect this ex- 

 ploration with that made on the Zimme expedition. 

 The local Chinese officials, however, placed so 

 many obstacles in his path. that, when almost 

 within sight of the boundary separating the 

 Shan states from Yunnan, he was obliged to 

 turn back and to make the best of his way to 

 Mandalay by the comparatively well-known route 

 via Tali-fu and Bamo. As he was about to lead 

 another expedition to the Shan country, he was 

 sent by the London Times as a war correspondent 

 to Tonquin. Unable to carry out his explorations 

 in person, he found a worthy coadjutor in Mr. 

 Hallett, a practised surveyor, who had been for 

 years in charge of some of the most important 

 divisions of British Burmah. The object these 

 two men had in view was the finding of a 

 practicable railway-route connecting India and 

 some British seaport with the fertile portions of 

 south-western China. 



Indo-China — as the south-eastern section of 

 Asia, lying to the south of China proper, is now 

 conveniently termed — is divided into three great 

 natural divisions, — the western, drained by the 



Irawaddy, Sittang, and Salwen, into the Bay of 

 Bengal ; the central, by the Meh-Kong or Cambo- 

 dia River, and by the Meh-Nam, a river of Bang- 

 kok, into the Gulf of Siam ; and the eastern, by 

 the Son-tai, or Red River of Tonquin, into the Gulf 

 of Tonquin. The valley of the Irawaddy is sep- 

 arated from that of the Salwen by a vast moun- 

 tain-chain, while the eastern and central divisions 

 are separated by a range or backbone running 

 from the Tibetan plateau to the Malay peninsula. 

 The lowest level of this latter range is in the lati- 

 tude of Maulmain, a British seaport situated on 

 the estuary of the Salwen. Now, as the most 

 fertile portion of Yunnan is in the central divis- 

 ion, obviously the best route for reaching it lies 

 in crossing this great mountain-range in the lati- 

 tude of Maulmain. This was the first conclusion 

 at which the explorers arrived. 



It is hue that the line via Bamo and Tali-fu 

 had hitherto been the favorite route. But, as Mr. 

 Hallett points out, 1 although the distance between 

 those two towns in a direct line is only two hun- 

 dred and fifty miles, the shortest practicable route 

 for a railway would be very nearly six hundred 

 miles in length : and even then four passes be- 

 tween eight thousand and nine thousand feet 

 above sea-level would have to be crossed. 



Mr. Hallett's plan consists, then, in a railway 

 running from Bangkok, the capital of Siam, up 

 the Meh-Nam to its junction with the Meh-Ping ; 

 thence up the Meh-Ping by Raheng, where the 

 line from Maulmain would come in, to a point 

 near the confluence of the Meh-Ping and the Meh- 

 Wung ; then up the latter river, and across the 

 water-parting between the Meh-Nam system and 

 the Meh-Kong or Cambodia River, to the Meh- 

 Kong at Kiang-Hsen, a town near the boundary 

 between the Siamese and Burmese Shan states ; 

 thence over the plain bordering the Meh-Kong to 

 Kiang-Hung, a town within fifty miles of Ssumao, 

 a Chinese frontier town where Colquhoun was 

 turned back. 



The southern portion of this route was well 

 known, owing in a great measure to the efforts of 

 the American missionaries in Siam. Mr. Hallett's 

 task, therefore, was to connect their explorations 

 with those of Colquhoun. He carried to his work 

 the skill of a practical engineer, and his surveys 

 were made with such splendid precision that the 

 cartographer of the Geographical society was able 

 to construct an excellent map of northern Siam, 

 which is reproduced in this number of Science. 



Of course, there are several objections to this 

 proposed route. It can be only indirectly con- 



1 " Exploration survey for a railway connection between 

 India, Siam, and China "' (Proc. roy. geogr. soc, January, 

 1886). 



