Abstract
AT the meeting of the Geographical Society on Monday evening Sir Rutherford Alcock announced that the Earl of Dufferin had formally resigned the office of president in consequence of his appointment to the St. Petersburg embassy. Mr. Clements R. Markham read a paper on the basin of the River Helmund and the smaller basin of the Abistada Lake, in Western Afghanistan, a region which is classic ground, and is the scene of many of the ancient Persian tales related in the pages of Ferdosi. Mr. Markham gave some interesting particulars respecting the formation of the river of Ghazni, which drains the eastern half of the remarkable isolated basin of Lake Abistada, on the east side of the western Sulimani Range. He afterwards read a paper by Lieut.-General Kaye, on the mountain passes leading to the valley of Bamian, based on that officer's recollections of his visit to the region north of Kabul, nearly forty years ago, supplemented by notes made at the time. With regard to the idols of Bamian, the limit of his journey. General Kaye mentions a curious fact, viz., that between the images and at their sides, peeping over their shoulders—and some even above their heads—were many caves in the cliff-side on which they are cut, having intricate connecting approaches and galleries cut within the rock; these formed dwellings for many Bamianchis and also for some camp-followers of the British. The two papers were illustrated by the large diagram of Afghanistan which has just been constructed for the Society.
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Geographical Notes . Nature 19, 394–395 (1879). https://doi.org/10.1038/019394a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/019394a0