X NOTES BY THE EDITOR 



that he will find the chief feeders of the White Nile flowing out from 

 its northern extremity, and thus determine the long-sought problem of 

 one of the chief sources of that classic stream." 



Cooler, the English geographer, has published an article in sup- 

 port of his belief that the great lake Nyanza, the southernmost por- 

 tion of which has been described by Livingstone, and visited by 

 several of the Portuguese explorers, is identical with the Tanganyika, 

 the northern end of which was discovered by Burton and Speke. 

 If this theory be true, then we shall have a great inland sea, available 

 for navigation, eight hundred and forty nautical miles in length, and 

 extending from latitude 2 to 12 south of the equator. 



At the last meeting of the British Association, the following com- 

 munication on Antarctic explorations, addressed by Captain Maury, 

 U. S. N., to Lord Wrottesley, the President, was received and read: 



" My Dear Lord Wrottesley, I hope the time is not far distant 

 when circumstances will be more auspicious than at present they 

 seem, for, as soon as there appears the least chance of success, I shall 

 urge the sending from this country an exploring expedition to the 

 eight millions of unknown square miles about the south pole. An 

 expedition might be sent from Australia, with little r no risk. Two 

 propellers, or even two vessels with auxiliary steam-power, might be 

 sent out, so as to spend onr three winter months in looking for a suit- 

 able point along the Antarctic continent to serve as a point of depart- 

 ure for overland or over-ice parties. Having found one or more such 

 places, vessels, properly equipped for land and ice and boat expedi- 

 tions, might be sent the next season, there to remain, seeking to pene- 

 trate the barrier, whether of mountain or of ice, or both, until the 

 next season, when they might be relieved by a fresh party, or return 

 home to compare notes, and be governed accordingly. You know the 

 barometer, at all those places which have a rainy and a dry season, 

 stands highest in the dry, lowest in the wet. Now I do not find any 

 indications that the Antarctic barometer has months of high range ; it 

 is low all the year. Therefore, if I be right in ascribing the apparent 

 tenuity of the air there to the heat that is liberated during the con- 

 densation of vapor from the heavy precipitation that is constantly 

 taking place along the sea front of those ' barriers,' we should be 

 correct in inferring that the difference in .temperature between the 

 Antarctic summer and winter is not very marked. If, in a case like 

 this, we might be permitted to indulge the imagination, we might fancy 

 the ' barrier ' to be a circular range of mountains, and that beyond 

 these lies the great Antarctic basin. Beyond this range, as beyond 

 the Andes, we may fan^y a rainless region, as in Peru, a region of 

 clear skies and mild climates. Though the air in passing this range 

 might be reduced below the utmost degree of Arctic cold, yet being 

 robbed of its vapor, it would receive as sensible the latent ht-at 

 thereof. Passing oii' to the polar slope of these mountains, this air, 



