cxviii GENERAL SUMMARY OF SCIENTIFIC AND 



It is intended to limit the field of international exploration to the 

 region bounded on the east and west by the Indian and Atlantic 

 Oceans, and on the north by the frontiers of the Egyptian territory 

 and independent Soudan. 



AUSTRALIA. 



An account has been recently published of explorations made in 

 Southern and Western Australia in 1875 by Mr, Ernest Giles, already 

 distinguished in Australian discovery. The expedition started July 

 27, 1875, from Youldeh d^pot, 135 miles N.N.W. from Fowler Bay, 

 near the border of the known region of South Australia. The first 

 important discovery was the well of Oldabinna, an open space in the 

 scrub bush which surrounds it. Moving westward from this place 

 an utterly waterless country was entered upon covered with dense 

 bushes. Five hundred miles were traversed before any water was 

 obtained, and the region was utterly uninhabited by man or animal. 

 After passing this desert another was traversed, after which a re- 

 gion occupied by hostile natives was crossed, the expedition finally 

 arriving in November at Perth, Western Australia. The whole jour- 

 ney covered 2500 miles, in which not one area fit for settlement was 

 found. The line traversed lies between the route of Eyre in 1840 

 and Forrest in 1870. 



Mr. Giles has during the winter season of 1876, from April to Au- 

 gust, accomplished a return journey, during which he traced the 

 Ashburton River to its sources, and determined the water-shed of 

 the western rivers, which he describes as simply a mass of rangy 

 country, abutting upon the desert in east longitude 120 20'. No 

 watercourses were found to flow eastward from the end of the 

 water-shed in that longitude. During the journey the longest time 

 the party were without finding water was ten days. They expe- 

 rienced an excessively cold winter, the thermometer in the morning 

 being for weeks down to 18. 



NEW GUINEA. 



The shores of New Guinea have continued to afford subjects of 

 interest to the explorer and naturalist. At the expense of the Gen- 

 oese authorities, Signor Odoardo Beccari has been engaged for some 

 years past in explorations in this vicinity, and has completed an im- 

 portant geographical work. In exploring the coast of Northwest- 

 ern New Guinea he has discovered a river called Wa Samson, flow- 

 ing from east to west for a distance of 215 miles, and afibrding the 

 principal drainage of this part of New Guinea. He has also ex- 

 amined Geelvink Bay, which separates the northwestern peninsula 

 from the mainland, and has made an important rectification of its 

 coast-line on the charts, shifting it to the northward in some places 

 as much as thirty miles. Until Signor Beccari's visit, the hydrog- 



