June 25, I860.] CONSUL PETHERICK'S LETTER TO THE SOCIETY. 223 



Fourteenth Meeting, June 25th, 1860. 

 Sir RODERICK I. MURCHISON, Vice-President, in the Chair. 



Presentations. — Isidore Gerstenherg ; Arthur Giles Puller ; and 

 Augustus Henry Smith, Esqrs., were presented upon their Election. 



Elections. — Commander Charles E. Forhes, r.n. ; the Rev. Cosmo 

 Reid Gordon ; Captain Samuel Hyde ; and Henry James Dunell ; Francis 

 Thomas Gregory ; Thomas Longridge Gooch, c.e. ; Herbert Ingram, m.p. ; 

 William Crichton Maclean ; John Septimus Roe, Surveyor-General, Western 

 Australia ; Henry Brinsley Sheridan, m.p. ; James Lowther Southcy ; 

 Jamds Watson; Thomas Matthias Weguelin ; and Thomas Wilson, Esqrs., 

 were elected Fellows. 



Captain the Hon. H. A. Murray, r.n., f.r.g.s., read the following 

 letter from Consul Petherick on the subject of his proposed offer to 

 proceed southwards from Khartum, in order to meet and assist the 

 expedition under Captains Speke and Grant : — 



8, Cork-street, June 19th, 1860. 

 My Lord, — In consequence of the refusal of Her Majesty's Govern- 

 ment to support the application for pecuniary assistance made on 

 my behalf by the Royal Geographical Society, for the purpose of 

 enabling me to meet Captains Speke and Grant with an armed 

 escort, and to furnish them and their party with provisions and the 

 means of transport down the Nile, and the Council having liberally 

 headed a subscription with 100/., to which your Lordship has in- 

 vited the Fellows of the Society to add their names, a few remarks 

 upon the following two subjects will not be out of place : — 



1st. The nature of the assistance I should propose to give Captains 

 Speke and Grant to contribute to their safe return down the Nile, 

 and the expenses thereof. 



2nd. The probable expense of an independent Expedition from 

 Khartum to follow up the course of the Nile to its source, in 

 combination with the aid to Captains Speke and Grant, as stated 

 above. 



In order to afford the greatest possible assistance to the Expe- 

 dition of Captains Speke and Grant, I consider it necessary to place 

 three well-provisioned boats, under an escort of twenty armed men, 

 at the base of the cataracts beyond Gondokoro, in the month of 

 November, 1861. 



With forty armed men, natives of Khartum or the adjoining pro- 

 vinces, I then would undertake personally to penetrate into the 

 interior as far as the Lake Nyanza, with a view to effect a meeting 



