4 FEBRUARY 1928, Page 20

Across Asia's Snows and Deserts (Putnam, illustrated, 215., is a

really admirably written narrative, full of excitement and particularly interesting information, of a journey under- taken by two American naturalists, Mr. W..J. Morden (the author) and Mr. J. L. Clark, to collect big-game specimens in the interior of Central Asia for the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Their route lay over the rugged land where Ghenghiz Khan once ruled, where Tamerlane fought and massacred, and where Kubla Khan erected his " stately pleasure domes "—a country which has been made fairly well known to the world by the explorations of Etherton, Sykes, Sir Aurel Stein and others. The adven- turers, despite arrest and torture, were lucky in bringing out

their collections, included hi h • l ded the first motion-pictures ever obtained of ovis poli in their native range. The pub- lisher's wrapper-note states that the expedition " redis- covered " the ovis poli, but this interesting wild sheep has never been lost.

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