254 EARLY GEOGRAPHY OF S. AFRICA. 



IsiNyati or Buffalo River were infested with the beasts from 

 which it takes its name. 



I was interested the other day on finding in the Maritzburg- 

 Museum a copy of the Waldseemiiller maps of 1507 and 1516 

 (the former the first, it is said, to mention America, though 

 the name is omitted in the second), which note elephants on 

 the East Coast by Zululand, and about the 30th parallel (i.e., 

 in the Inkomanzi district of Natal), also " abundance of gold,"' 

 but here perhaps Zululand and its gold mines is really again 

 intended. 



At the Cape they mark the coast points and rivers with names 

 of all the royalties of Portugal, one would think, but nothing 

 inland except naked savages with bows, probably Hottentots, 

 since there is no sign that they are very small. Further to the 

 north are the Mountains of the Moon, with various barbaric 

 chiefs, throned, sceptred and crowned, and ultimately Prester 

 John himself to the south of Egypt. 



The observant Steedman marks stone walls near Melita, and 

 again near the Caledon. This in contrast to the Colony and 

 some Bechoana tribes which made kraals of branches. The 

 entry " Descendants of Europeans " in Thompson's map refers 

 to the pathetic fate of the survivors of the " Grosvenor " c 

 an earlier wreck about 1763. Steedman gives two accounts of 

 the finding of these mulattos. 



CONSERVATION OF SOIL MOISTURE.— During the second 

 half of 1909 a series of experiments was initiated at the Robert- 

 son Experiment Station, with a view to determining the pro- 

 portions of moisture lost to the soil by evaporation, and how 

 much of that loss it would be possible to obviate by cultivation. 

 The soil used in the experiments was the ordinary red soil of 

 the district, a soil which often goes by the name of Karroo 

 soil, although, strictly speaking, the appellation is not quite 

 correct. The experiments were conducted in three pairs, one 

 of each pair of soils being cultivated and the other left without 

 cultivation. At the commencement of September the first pair 

 of soils received a wetting corresponding to a rainfall of four 

 inches, the second pair receiving a six-inch, and the third pair 

 an eight-inch wetting. By the end of the month the nett loss 

 by evaporation from the uncultivated soil of the first pair had 

 amounted to -8 of an inch of rain, while the cultivated soil had 

 lost only -2 of an inch, the saving by cultivation amounting to 

 nearly 17,000 gallons per acre. In the second pair the loss 

 was I'O inch in the case of the uncultivated and "4 of an inch 

 in the cultivated soil, the conservation being practically equal 

 in amount to that of the first pair. The loss of the uncultivated 

 soil in the third pair was the equivalent of 2-5 inches of rain, 

 while the cultivated soil lost about 1-9 inch, the difference 

 between the two soils being similar to that in the other cases. 

 The total nett loss of moisture from the uncultivated soil of 

 the third pair amounted to over 68,000 gallons per acre. 



