XXII NOTES BY THE EDITOR. 



Attention is also called to the publication of Poncel, upon the 

 Argentine Republic ; the researches of Agassiz upon the Ama- 

 zon ; the geological studies of M. Guillemin Taragre, in Mexi- 

 co, and the expedition of Whymper, in Alaska. 



Moyne has made a visit to the Strait of Magellan, and to the 

 country of the Patagonians. 



In Australia one signals the expedition of John Forrest into the 

 interior of the eastern part of the continent as far as 123 of east 

 longitude from Greenwich. The report published by the governor 

 of the State of Victoria, under the title of "Auriferous Deposits 

 and Mining Districts of the Province of Victoria," by Mr. 

 Brought Smith, is also cited upon this region. 



Proceeding eastward from the Sea of Aral, the Russians have 

 rendered the river Syr Daria navigable by steam vessels of a lim- 

 ited size, and, fixing military posts on its banks, have ascended 

 towards its sources, and taken possession of the populous and 

 flourishing city of Tashkent, a great mart of caravan commerce. 

 Russia has also triumphed over the Khan of Bokhara. The appre- 

 hension that these advances of Russia would prove prejudicial 

 to British India is losing ground in England. 



The industrial classes of the United States have been the sub- 

 ject of a long and interesting report by Mr. Francis Clare Ford, 

 Secretary of the English legation, at Washington. This report 

 was made in pursuance of a circular addressed by Lord Clarendon, 

 in April, 1869, to the diplomatic and consular agents of Great 

 Britain, instructing them, to report upon the condition of the in- 

 dustrial classes in the countries to which they were accredited. Mr. 

 Ford says that the American system of common-school education 

 has elevated the condition of the native-born working man, and 

 has disposed him to prefer occupations in which the exercise of 

 the brain is in greater demand than that of the elbow, and 

 asserts that the steady influx of immigrants for the last twenty 

 years has created a disinclination on the part of American work- 

 men to engage in the rough toil of purely muscular labor which 

 the newly arrived foreigner is ready to exert for his support. 



It will be recollected that in the "Annual of Scientific Discovery " 

 of 1870, we noticed the enactment passed by the Massachusetts 

 Legislature to provide instruction to the working-classes in me- 

 chanical drawing. Several of these schools are now in opera- 

 tion, and constitute, we think, the germ of a brighter future. 



