GERMAN PUBLICATIONS.
Politisch-Hilitarische Karts von Afghanistan, Persien, und Vorder Indian sur Veransehaulichung des Vordringens der Hassan und
Bearbeitet von Paul Langhans. (Justus Perthes, Gotha. • 1 mark.)—Our map-makers ought to "wake up" to the fact that the German disciples of Anaximander are their superiors in diversity and frequency of production, as well as in exacti- tude and artistic execution. Besides a supply of twenty or thirty high-class atlases, geographical and historical, published in such towns as Glogau, Gotha, and Weimar, and bearing names like Kiepert, Spruner, Berghaus, Andree, there is a large German output of folded hand-maps of the best scientific and lithographic quality. All these articles are kept well up to date, and on the occurrence of a Fashoda, Port Arthur, or Kiao-chow incident, or on the development of any political question susceptible of geo- graphical illustration, the publishers do not wait till the storm has blown over, but at once issue an appropriate map which may cost half or a third of the price of its rough and belated London equivalent. The present hand-sheet (42 in. by 48 in.) (adapted from Stieler's atlas) has a finely coloured map of Central Asia, which extends from Calcutta to Mozul and the Caucasus, from Ceylon to the Sea of Aral, showing Koweit, Mohamera, and the like on the Persian Gulf, and even two of our Indian stations for Baer prisoners (Uroballa is forgotten !) There is a larger scale map of Afghanistan, and two supplementary dittoes ; railways and cables are marked (the new Anatolian extension line included), all the local Russian and Indian garrisons and neighbouring military forces available for the invasion and defence of Afghanistan, the Punjab, Persia, &c, being elabo- rately noted by the usual pictorial signs, while the• general organis ,tion and strength of the armies concerned are explained in a separate type-appendix. A paragraph of this conveys a warning of special interest to ourselves,—viz., that the Russian force in Turkestan is an unknown quantity and that it is said to have been recently augmented from the Caucasus by twenty or thirty thousand men. On the Pamirs the paint has gone wrong, making the Russian forts of the plateau look as if they were in British occupation.
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