that numerous irregularities should have crept in, which neither I nor Dr. Hedin could prevent. Add to this, that, as I have already observed, I had no opportunity of studying the whole of the material collectively and all together, whereby I should have been able to lay a firmer foundation for the application of the system of transcription adopted, and it will readily be understood that it has not always been possible to carry out the simplification of the intervocalic consonants and the discrimination between e and ä in a perfectly satisfactory manner. To repair these defects in the Index would serve no purpose, especially as to do the thing properly a systematic study of the spoken language in the country where it is spoken is indispensably necessary. A thorough examination of these Turkish dialects, made by a specialist in Turkish, trained in the methods of the modern 5hilological school and familiar with dialectal investigation, would pretty certainly yield valuable information also as to the successive waves of Mongols, Irans, and other races which have swept across those regions, and contribute materially to the solution of the problem as to the primitive home of the Turkish peoples. And it is with the expression of the hope, that this investigation may speedily be taken in hand, that the present writer concludes his labours upon the geographical nomenclature of Central Asia, a task which he only undertook under the pressure of circumstances.
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