A meeting of this Society was held at the Shanghai Publis Library Monday evening. Dr. J. Edkins, Vice-President of the Society, presided and there were about 20 menibers present.
The minutes of the last meeting having been taken as read, the Hon. Secretary annowuced the election of the following new members:—-Messrs. Henrick Bahr, Tin Wsien, Harold Browett, J. F. Bill hurst, E, Gerecke, Luigi Camera, J. Donovan, W. M, Andrew and J. Ti Shanghai, Mr. Juan de Licopolis M of Peking and A. Zvoyef, M.D., Naval Surgeon, Viadivostock.
The Caray brought before the mecting a motion proposed by Dr. Jamieson and seconded by Me. Mélleudorff which had been before the Committee and which it would be necessary to confirm at the next general meeting, to the effect thet Mr. P. J. Hughes be made an honorary member of the Society.
Mr. Fuasex then proceeded to read his paper on the Fish-Skin Tartars of which we give a first instalment as follows:
Considerable attention has been attracted The adventurous Move of Captain Wig-to Siberia of late years by several causes.
gins up the Yenisei River to within a few hundred li of China, and his support both by the Russian Government and by the British Foreign Office; the building of the great railway, so interesting to foreign residents in China, both from the political possibilities with' which it is fraught, and the personal consideration of a three weeks' journey to England with the Channel the only salt water to cross; the attention of Into given to gold mining both by Chinese and Russias; aid the Corean question, to intiniately connected with the Siberian, It is a land, says Savorin, where every-that wan can need is found in abund-a Sanada in reserve which is destined relieve the over-crowding of Burope for centuries, It has rich arable land, fat meadows, iron, silver, gold, copper, lead, and precious stoves. In the rivers are the otter, the beaver, and fish in such abundance that they can be in places scouped out in bucketsful. "In its woods are sables, squirrels, martens, foxes, ermines. Had not its exploitation been left tothe enter-rise of private conguistadores like Ermak Timoféevitch and Khabiroff, who sought rather their own benefit than the permanent advantage of the State, there is little doubt, as Ravenstein observes, that the Amur colony might have been made " wealthy, populous, and prosperous colony, two cen turies ago. At present the population of about 40,000 Russians and 24,000 natives have on an average each 6 square miles of elbow room. It is now quite long time ago since I was called upon to translate from the Russian the two interesting monographs of V. P. Margaritotl, published in 1887 and 1888 by the Vlalivostuck Society for Promoting the Kuowleige of the Amur Region—one on the Orutehes, a tribe who may be called a surf of poor relations of the Manchus who rule this huge empire, the other on kitchen midden remains, found in the Amur Gulf near the Sedimi River. Margaritoff is a specialist in skulls; but although he devotes much of his' two pamphlets et there is much in them wh hoped will be thought of general interest, Mr. M. Veniokoif, of the Russ. Geogr. Soc. in the Russian work (a) describing his travels which he was good enough tu present to this Library, says that he found his knowledge of the language of the Goldi enabled him to understand the Orotches, as the two peoples havea great many words in common. The pronunciation, he says, differs considerably:—the Orotehes lamu for name (sea), pila for bird (river), and venerally soften their words. He extracted a vocabulary feom the Travels of La Pérouse, but unfortunately lost it before he could verify it on the spot. Mr. Venivkoft's guide, who was acquainted with almost every Tungusic dialect,—more especially Transbaikal Tungus, lon, Gulch, and Mangun, told him that Crotch was more like tu Soles than to any of the others es Evh Yue-ts:. The Chinese inmiion he says dues nut extend beyond 46° N. Lat.
The country Veniokoff desert land rich in wonderful natural harbours, rivalling even South Australia in shis respect.
The Sikhota Alin called by the Russians Bereyecoi Khvebet, the Const Range, separates the narrow strip of laud lying aluug the Pacific, here called the Gulf of Tartary and Sea of Japan, from the basin of the Ussuri and the Awur Rivers. Tu the west of the Sikhota Alin range flow these two great rivers, soon united into one, the Amur, in a nearly due North direction, with only a trifling inclination to the-east. From the Sikhota Alin flow eastwards into the Pacific those minor rivers by which the Crotch and Goldi trap the sable and spear or net the salmon and the sturgeon. This great mountain range thus plays in Siberia much the same role that the mighty chain of the Andes does in South America. It is, however, not of such a regular wall-like shape, being more Alpine in character. Its crest varies in distance from 25 to 80 miles from the coast.
The Orotchi, a Tungusian tribe, formerly occupied the part of Russian Tartary ex-
(a) Puteshestivys po Okraiham Russkoi Azii i Zapiski o rukh. St. Petersburg 1868.—p. 88, tending from the: shores of Peter-the-Great, E., to De Castries (b) Bay, lat. 51,98N., long. 140.49 E., and from the upper affluents' of the Rivers Ussuri and Amur to the Pacific. Here surrounded on three sides by peoples of other type, they have undergone in the course of time an ethnological modification, their contact with the Manchus, a people of far greater culture, having worked the most powerfully in that direction, Tu the neighbourhood of Viadivostock (42° N.) there are now no pure Orotchi, and indeed up to about 48 North latitude; the Crotch type, expressing the outer life, and the Tauguage, expressing the inner, having been gradually so changed by Manchuand Chinese influence, that even the Tungusic origin of the race is hurd to identify.
The transforming influences from the west and north have been less marked but have been nevertheless so effectual that, the primitive appearance of the Grotch now remains intact only north of 48°, and moreover only along tke coast. Fur this re Mr. V. P. Margaritoff, from the Ru whose work the following is " translation, considerably abridged, was instructed by the Society [Amur Province Scientific Exploration and Investigation Society], to proceed as far north as 49°, to Port Imperial (c) [Imperatorskaya Havaii], to study the pure Crotch, instead of to any point nearer Viadivostutk, the head-quarters of the Society. This entailed a sen-voyage of ubout 800 miles. Messrs. Sheveleff and Shulifigiu gave the explorer a free passage there and back in their steamer A. K. Walden and the Suciety voted 400 rubles for his equipment, which included objects suitable fur barter with the Orotchi for objects for the museun),—and for hire of guides, drivers, inthe course of his explorations, which extended along the course of rivers Koppi, Tundji, Khodé and Ué. 'The most costly objects acquired were men' and women's costumes, and Shaman para phernalia, but the dearest to the explorer's heart were 17 Orvteh skulls and one skeletou, which were obtained gratis, but with uiuch risk and trouble,—as the Orotchi, (he naively explains) "like all semi-savages, are ever ready to take up arms in defence of the tombs of their ancestors." These skulls Orotchi for the first time acquired by the Viadivostuck Museum on this occasion, he st important aids to our knowledge of anthropology, the more so as some of them were obtained from very ancient burial-places, Of the manner in' which he obtained one, he speaks on p. 30 in a manner which it is very painful for one not an autheopologist to toxd, Shrevk when he visited the AmurRiver in 1854 found that the modern Orotches extend from De Castries Bay N. 61.28, B, 140.49 nearly to St. Olga's Bay, N. 43}, B. 135.3 having the sea for their E. boundary and for their W. the upper waters of the Ussuri and Amur, consequently they inhabited the western as well as the eastern slopes of the Sikhota Alin range south of these, i.e. on St. O)ga's Bay and further south, lived Orotch#s who had become considerably changed by Manchu influence, and were known by the Manchu name of Tadzi. They lived by the Ussuri river and extended even to Vladivostock. Th Tadzi have shifted their boundaries since to further (b) Named by La Pérouse in 1787 after the Minister of Marine of France.
(c) This place is marked on old maps as Barracouta Bay. The Barracouta was a British war steamer which took part in the Inglorious Siberian campaign of the Eu and French during the Crimean War. It was in Port Imperial that the greater part of the allied forces were lying when on lat July official confirmation of the conclusion of peace arrived in the far North-east. The first Russian Settlement named Konstantinoffsk, was established here only in 1853. It was abandoned during the war, but reoceuied afterwards. It is closed by ice from november to middle of May.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.