as they do to ever higher altitudes as they approach the Indus. This, in fact, is Mahaban. By all the rules of Native strategy in Northern India this is precisely the position which they would take up. Aornos appears to have been a kind of generic name with the Greeks, applied to mountain positions of a certain class, for we hear of another Aornos in Central Asia, and the word translated "rock" seems to mean anything from a mountain (as in the present case) to a sand-bank (as in the case of the voyage of Nearkos). No isolated hill such as would exactly fit in with Arrian's description exists in that part of the Indus valley, and no physical changes such as alteration in the course of the Indus, or such as might be effected by the tectonic forces of Nature, are likely to have removed such a mountain. Abbott's identification has therefore been generally accepted for many years, and it has remained for our latest authority to question it seriously. The latest investigator into the archæological interests of the Indian trans-frontier is Dr. M. A. Stein, the Inspector-General of Education in India. The marvellous results of his researches in Chinese Turkistan have rendered his name famous all over the archæological world, and it is to him that we owe an entirely new conception of the civilization of Indo-China during the Buddhist period. Dr. Stein's methods are thorough. He leaves nothing to speculation, and indulges in no romance, whatever may be the temptation. He takes with him on his archæological excursions a trained native surveyor of the Indian survey, and he thus not only secures an exact illustration of his own special area of investigation, but incidentally he adds immensely to our topographical knowledge of little known regions. This is specially necessary in those wild districts which are more immediately contiguous to the Indian border, for it is seldom that the original surveys of these districts can be anything more than topographical sketches acquired, sometimes from a distance, sometimes on the spot, but generally under all the disadvantages and disabilities of active campaigning, when the limited area within which survey operations can be carried on in safety is often very restricted. Thus we have very presentable geographical maps of the regions of Alexander's exploits in the north, but we have not had the opportunity of examining special sites in detail, and there are doubtless certain irregularities in the map compilation. This is very much the case as regards those hill districts on the right bank of the Indus immediately adjoining the Buner valley both north and south of it. Mahaban, the mountain which in Abbott's opinion best represents what is to be gathered from classical history of the general characteristics of Aornos, is south of Buner, overlooking the lower valley close to the Indus River. Dr. Stein formed the bold project of visiting Mahaban personally, and taking a surveyor with him.