Geographical Notes

Abstract

THE last volume of the lzvestia of the Caucasus Geographical Society (vol. viii. 2) contains a great variety of geographical information. General Stebnitzky contributes a most interesting paper on the figure of the earth, being a discussion of results obtained from pendulum-observations in connection with the opinions expressed by M. Faye. An excellent map of the province of Kuban, on a scale of 13 miles to an inch, is accompanied by a sketch of the colonisation of the province, which already has a Russian population of more than one million inhabitants. M. Koshkul gives a short description of the “Naphtha Mountain,” in the Transcaspian region. The telegraphic determination of the longitudes of Tiflis, Shemakha, and Baku acquires the more interest, as it allows of the determination of the general error (14″.3) of the Caucasian triangulation and the deviations from the vertical line, due to local causes at these three places. A list of points whose positition has been determined by the triangulation made in the Transcaspian region, as also in Khiva and Bukhara, is given by MM. Pervas and Gedeonoff, and will be most welcome to cartographers. Among the notes we notice the following:—On the Caucasians of o Kubañ, due to M. Zagursky, whose researches on the languages of the Caucasus are always so great a help to ethnography; a list of the Caucasian population in Kubañ in 1883, from which we learn that from Kubañ alone no less than 13,600 Circassians have emigrated since 1871; M. Chantre's craniological measurements are summed up by M. Zagursky; and M. Lessar contributes a paper on the north-western frontier of Afghanistan. The “Appendix” shows where the chief attention of the Caucasus Geographical Society is now directed. They contain translations of a work dealing with Armenia (the “Toros Akhpar” guide through Armenia, by the Archbishop Garegin Srvandzyantz); of the Turkish “Salname” for the Erzeroum Vilayet; of notes on Syrian-Khaldeans, by a native from Hosrabad; and of Mr. Charles Wilson's lecture on Asia Minor, delivered before the London Geographical Society.