We have often called attention to the curious fact that while English travellers were year by year exploring the table lands of tropical Africa, by a strange inconsistency the more important territory known as Central Asia was permitted to remain almost utterly unknown, or, if explorations were attempted, they were done almost by stealth and with the scarcely disguised ill will of the Indian Government. At one time after Mr. Shaw had succeeded in clearing the road to Yarkand and Kashgar, the British Government. of India did so far depart from its accustomed apathy as to send a Commissioner to the late Ameer, but apparently sar-prised at the success of the expedition, it omitted to follow it up as it had arranged to do, so that Mr. Ney Elias, in Ladak, now occupies the most advanced English post towards Central Asia. While we have been sleeping, the Russians, on the other hand, have pushed forward their explorations, and though the gain to geographical knowledge has by no means been in proportion to the extent of fresh country traversed, it may be said that: our principal Imowledge of Central Asia is now derived from Russian sources, As a general rule, political or military ends have been the objects of Russian explorers, and science has gained comparatively little fom the long journeys undertaken. The case of Colonel Prejovalsky is, howerer, an exception to the rule. A thorough naturalist and geographer, the pursuit of knowledge has been his main object, and for the second time we are indebted to him for throwing light on some of the least known portions of the earth's surface. His last journey has been over tracks not traversed by Europeans since the days of Marco Polo, and much of the mystery ate taching to the surroundings of Lake Lob and the water drainage of Eastern Turkestan may now be considered as set at rest. Lob Nor itself has been placed nearly two degrees South of its usually accepted latitude; while the table land of Thibet has been proved to send out its outliers to the thirty. nine degree of north latitude, where they form a bold range of mountains abutting on the desert plains about the lake and rising to the height of 138,000 to 14,000 feet, under the name of the Altyn Tag. The desert of Eastern Tarkestan appears to be connected with that of Gobi by but a narrow tract some 150 miles across, in the lowest depressions of which are situated a chain of lakes, of which Lob Nor forms one, Like many of the Central-Asian lakes, the shores of Lake Lob are ill defined, and Prejevalsky, in attempting to follow it towards the north-east, found progress impossible owing to the quantities of tall reeds which obstructed further passage. The reeds for the most part grew out of salt marshes, and nearly everywhere the soil was impregnated with salt; yet strangely enough, Prejevalsky found the water in the lake quite fresh.. It would seem from this that some lower reservoir than that reached by the Colonel must exist, or we must have the strange phenomenon of salt marshes and brackish streams feeding a fresh water lake. Many centuries. ago the Chinese had a tradition that the waters of the great Salt Marsh had an ander-ground connexion with the springs of
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.