Scientific Journey Research Articles

A Scientific Journey in the Hwangho Region of China and Tibet

A Scientific Journey in the Hwangho Region of China and Tibet

Geographical Education and Natural Science 1

ONE of my claims to address you on the subject of geographical education is that I have been a traveller. In my opinion nothing can better bring home to the mind the value of good geographical instruction, or make more keenly felt the disadvantages of the lack of it, than a scientific journey round the world. It is naturally the scientific side of geography which interests me most; and it is on the importance and prospects of physical geography as a subject of education that I have now to speak.

The Fauna of Russian Central Asia

UNTIL within the last thirty yearsTurkistan has been unknown to science, and what is now ascertained concerning its fauna and flora is for the most part inaccessible to the scientific world because written in Russian. Not that autoptic writers of eminence upon the zoology of the country are numerous. They do not number a dozen, the names most conspicuous being Prjevalsky, Alpheraky, Bogdanoff, Severtsoff, and especially Fedchenko. Prjevalsky 's routes do not touch mine, except in the Kuldja region, where also Alpheraky travelled, and collected Lepidoptera, with a list of which he has favoured me. To Bogdanoffand SevertsofF I am indebted for information not previously published in English, whilst in connection with the immense work that bears Fedchenko's name I have had the valuable help of Madame Olga Fedchenko, who both accompanied her husband on his scientific journeys and, after his lamented death, edited his works. When I add that I have before me proofs of between three and four thousand species of fauna and flora, in about twenty lists with introductions, the scientific reader will not need to be told that in the compass of a single article I can but touch the fringe of the subject. I have ventured to think, however, the readers of NATURE might be interested in a plain statement that would give some idea of the little-known fauna of Turkistan, as well as indicate what I hope to publish shortly in fuller form.

Science in the Argentine Republic *

THE fourth part of the Bulletin of the National Academy of Sciences recently founded at Cordova, in the Argentine. Republic, completes the first volume of this remarkable work, of which we have previously given some account to our readers.† The present part is mainly occupied by the conclusion of a long article upon the vegetation of the little known province of Tucuman, in the interior of the Republic, by Dr. Hieronymus, commenced in a former number. This is based upon the observations made by the author during a long and extensive scientific journey in that province, and upon the collections amassed by Dr. Lorentz in the same districts in 1871 and 1872, which have been mainly determined by Prof. Grisebach, of Göttingen. A second important article is by Dr. D. A. Döring, and treats of the land and freshwater Molluscs of the Argentine Republic, amongst which are a considerable number of new species, and several interesting novel forms discovered by the author. A third memoir, from the pen of Dr. Burmeistet, treats of the abnormal Hymenopterous insects of the Linnean genus Mutilla, and forms a complete monograph of the native species of this group, which will be very acceptable to entomologists. By the chronicle appended to the number, we learn that the strife which has prevailed between the Director of the Academy and the six German professors originally imported for its constitution has terminated in the signal defeat of the latter. After the expulsion of about half the number, the remainder resigned, and their places have been filled by other professors from the same country, whom we trust Dr. Burmeister will find more tractable. That they are full of work is evident by the contributions to science already published in the present volume, upon the successful completion of which we heartily congratulate the energetic and illustrious Director of the Academy of Natural Sciences of the Argentine Republic.