14 NOTES BY THE EDITOR 



and of suggesting means for their prevention or relief. It is proposed 

 to select each year, for special and thorough investigation, a single 

 trade, or group of trades, or some particular kind of injury. Thus it 

 is contemplated to devote the remainder of the present session to as 

 complete an inquiry as the means at the disposal of the Committee 

 may permit into the injury to the eyes which unfortunately attaches 

 to many industrial occupations, and a synopsis of some of the 

 physical evils which attach to various kinds of industrial labor is to be 

 circulated among artisans and others for information. It is then pro- 

 posed to hold in the ensuing sessions an exhibition of inventions and 

 appliances for making such handicraft employment more healthy. 



The London Geographical Society has received advices from the 

 travellers sent out under its auspices : Lieut. Burton and Dr. Wallin 

 are pushing their way in Arabia ; and Dr. Vogel, when last heard 

 from, was on the borders of Lake Tchad, which he describes as more 

 resembling a vast marsh than a sheet of water. The interior of 

 Africa, he says, is a " terrible country " to travel in. Were it not for 

 the importance of clearing up its geography and discovering its 

 resources, few would be found to explore it. 



Among the various results of Dr. Vogel's scientific labors trans- 

 mitted to England, his astronomical observations to fix the position of 

 Kuka are of the highest importance ; for when the three coordinates 

 latitude, longitude, and elevation of this great central point of 

 Africa have been ..determined with definite exactitude, we possess a 

 beacon by which all other researches respecting Central Africa which 

 have been collected up to the present time, and the various journeys 

 and itineraries which have been performed in that region, will be rec- 

 tified and fixed upon the map. Dr. Vogel is the first professional 

 astronomer of acknowledged talent who has undertaken a journey to 

 Central Africa ; and so little reliance was placed on the observations 

 of his predecessors. even so justly celebrated travellers as Clapper- 

 ton and Denham, by writers on African geography, that every one 

 seems to have considered himself perfectly justified in improving 

 upon them and shifting them about ad libitum, hundreds of miles, to the 

 east or west. 



The result of Dr. Overweg's astronomical observations of Lake 

 Tsad, backed by the opinion of Prof. Encke, clearly indicated that 

 Clapperton and Denham's position was too far to the east, but left the 

 precise distance undetermined. It was reserved for Dr. Vogel to 

 solve this vexata qurestio, which, for one of his age, (22 years,) is no 

 small merit. According to him, the position of Kuka is as follows : 

 12 55' 14" latitude N., 13 22' longitude E., from Greenwich. 

 Elevation above the level of the sea, 900 feet 50 feet above Lake 



