eralized description of all High Asia, based very largely on the result of the Schlagintweit expeditions. The results of these journeys form one of the most valuable contributions to geographical knowledge made during this century. The author's generalizations with regard to the surface configuration of the country are best seen in his map, compiled on a scale of 1: 4,050,000, from the observations of the brothers Schlagintweit, and from those of the members of the Great Trigonometrical Survey. In comparing this map with former representations of the same region, we are struck first by the extent to which the details of topography and political geography have been filled in, and next by the great persistence of the Karakorum range, which has only so recently been found to exceed all the mountains of the world in mean height, to be indeed "the culminating ridge of the earth." We observe a well-defined parallelism not only between the Himalaya, Karakorum, and Kwenlun ranges, but also among the ridges and valleys that lie between the two former. In at least several of the valleys thus formed there are immense deposits of tertiary fresh-water lakes, which in places, as in the basin of the Upper Sutlej, are more than 1,500 feet thick, and mark the extent of former large water areas. These have long been drained by an erosion which has deepened the outlets and cut backwards drainage channels often 1,200 to 1,500 feet deep in the tertiary strata of the lake bottoms. The present lakes of Western Tibet are the remnants of these formerly grand inland seas, which at elevations of 5,000 to 15,000 feet washed the bases of mountains towering 5,000 to 10,000 feet above their mirrors. Herr von Schlagintweit devotes a chapter to a very interesting description of these lakes, and a discussion of their origin. Among them are the salt lakes, which, according to the author, owe their saline character wholly to absence of outlet, and to the consequent concentration by evaporation. An interesting fact is the occurrence of what seemed to be a kind of salmon in the double lake Tsomognalari. The upper lake is fresh, and empties during the time of high-water into the lower lake, which has no outlet, and is salt, and the fish seems to make its migrations between the two. The disappearance of so considerable an area of water surface must have produced marked changes in the climate, and yet the author expressly states that there are no indications of a former general extension of the glaciers beyond their present limits. On the contrary, one of the unexpected results of their investigations was the discovery that the lowest glaciers of High Asia (allowing for the climatic zone in which they, lie) reach to a relatively lower level than those of the Alps. In only one instance did he find the traces of an extinct glacier, though he observed areas of diminished nevés; but both of these occurrences he considers as comparatively local consequences of the decrease of moisture due to the gradual drying up of neighboring lakes. Perhaps future explorations on the more northern Kwenlun and Tlinshan may show the remains of a formerly far more extensive glacial action contemporaneous with the former submergence of the Siberian and Russian steppes. There is a chapter discussing the Tibetan climate, which, owing to the elevated position of so great an area, and to its highly rarefied and dry air, is one of diurnal and annual extremes, but in which these extremes have a considerable regularity as regards times of recurrence. The dryness of the atmosphere has here for its necessary consequence a scarcity of soil; and in valleys of over twelve thousand feet elevation, as in Upper Spiti, large areas even of the valley plains are without even the color of vegetable soil. Isolated agriculture was found only near springs or along rivulets whose channels were not cut deep, or where irrigation was possible. But the volume gives, practically, no new information concerning the agricultural products of Western Tibet. The articles of export are sheep's wool, the hair of the Tibetan goat for shawl manufacture, live sheep and goats, borax and coarse salt, and recently gold from the mines of Thok-jalung. The principal imports are tea and grain, chiefly in form of flour; rice comes in large quantities from India. Tea comes still almost wholly from China. The low price of the Chinese "brick-tea" gives it an advantage over the tea of the Himalaya plantations, and, besides this reason, the Himalaya varieties are considered inferior in aroma to the Chinese. The commerce is conducted largely at fairs, and consists in an exchange of products in which one volume of salt is considered equal to one and one half volumes of flour; it was found that this was equal to one hundred pounds of flour or sixty pounds of rice for one hundred pounds of salt. Although opium forms an important part of the merchandise which passes through Ladak on its way to China, it is not used at all by the natives. "The goat of Tibet and of the countries lying to the north, and also of those immediately south, furnishes the best shawl material. This is the short wool-pashm- which lies under the long goat-hair." Some interesting remarks concerning shawl-wool and shawl manufacture are quoted by the author from Dr. Watson's "Textile Manufactures, 1867," and may be reproduced in this notice. "The dearest shawl-wool comes to Cashmere, not from Tibet, but from Turfán Kichar via Yárkland. It costs in Cashmere three to four shillings per pound for the uncleaned, and six to seven shillings for the cleaned. . . . . In the manufacture of a shawl of the best material, weighing seven pounds, and selling in Cashmere for £300, the items of cost are, £ 30 for material; £100 for labor; £ 50 for expenditure on mechanical arrangements, etc.; £70 for tax in Cashmere." There is an attractive chapter on the interesting province of Ladak, which lies at an elevation of between 11,000 and 12,000 feet. In regard to longevity, the inhabitants enjoy a moderately good average. But the population is small even when compared with the capacity of the land for supporting life, a fact for which Herr von Schlagintweit finds an explanation in the prevalence of the Tibetan custom of polyandry. Although this remark is the only reference to this custom in this volume, it is a recognition of its existence, by a cautious observer. In this variety of marriage the eldest son of a household selects one woman to be the only wife of all the brothers, and the children are apportioned to the husbands successively in the order of the ages of the latter. The wife is said to be the head of the household, and to manage the affairs of all her husbands, however diverse the occupations of these may be. Among the diseases common in Tibet is cretinism, which occurs even in the highest inhabited localities. Diseases of the eye are also frequent, and are caused to a great extent by the dust-storms of summer, and by the smoke that fills the houses in winter. But severe costiveness is the national trouble of the Tibetans, and is due, the author thinks, partly to the indigestible character of their food, and largely to permanent residence in a region of low barometric pressure and extreme dryness, and where, consequently, the body suffers a great loss of moisture by evaporation. Besides the map, this volume contains seven finely executed fullpage views of characteristic scenery, and a series of admirable panoramic profiles, in which three degrees of distance are defined by shading. Cambridge: Printed by Welch, Bigelow, and Company. races, like animals, have no history, 256 258 - - the all-important contrast, not what these pleasures and pains are, Buckle, H. T., his Posthumous Works, ed- Charitable Sisterhoods, article on, 439-460 -value of Miss Stephen's work on The - Deaconess Houses, and their num- - Cherbuliez, Victor, his Meta Holdenis, crit- constitutional amendment providing for Fires and Fire Departments, article on, - - - - - Colonies, 165-Gov. Winthrop's lamen- Jones, Charles C., Jr., his Antiquities of Leonowens, Mrs. Anna H., her The Ro- Medicine, Modern, article on, 1–37 — Morley, John, his Rousseau, critical notice Napoleon III., universal suffrage under, 341 Paine, John K., his St. Peter, an Oratorio, - Schopenhauer, Arthur, and his Pessimistic |