248 SCIENTIFIC RECORD FOR 1884. 



hitherto a blank on the maps, Mr. Winnecke has discovered and named 

 various lakes and mountains and one river, the Hay, an important feeder 

 of the Marshall. 



As another instance of the enterprise characterizing Australian news- 

 papers in geographical matters, it may be mentioned that the Toicnand 

 Country Journal, of Sydney, has employed Mr. Shaw, a naturalist and 

 artist of Sydney, to make a canoe voyage down the Lachlan, Murrum- 

 bidgee and Murray rivers, with a view to enlarge the knowledge of the 

 interior river systems of Australia. 



Arnhem Land, the country northwest of the Gulf of Carpentaria, has 

 been lately explored by Mr. D. Lindsay. All this region north of the 

 Koper Kiver is a blank on even the latest Government maps, but a large 

 amount of material for tilling up this blank has been obtained by Mr. 

 Lindsay's surveys, made between July and December, 1883. 



Dr. E. von Lendenfeld has been making an examination of the great 

 Cordillera range of New South Wales for the geological survey depart- 

 ment, and finds that Mount Kosciusko, commonly supposed to be the 

 highest peak (7,171 feet), must give way to Mount Clarke, some distance 

 farther south, 7,256 feet high. Indications of ancient glaciers were found 

 at a height of 5,800 feet above sea-level, the upper tree limit being 

 found at a height of 5,900 feet. On the lee side of the main range patches 

 of snow are found all the year round above a level of 6,500 feet, con- 

 stituting a proof, among many, of the lower temperature and greater 

 amount of moisture south of the equator. 



AFRICA. 



In the continent of Africa the area of unknown territory is rapidly de- 

 creasing as explorations are made by tcavellers of different nationalities. 

 The expedition commanded by Mr. Joseph Thomson, and fitted out by the 

 Eoyal Geographical Society, to explore the area lying directly between 

 the eastern coast of Africa and the Victoria Nyanza Lake, left England 

 in December, 1882, and, after encountering many obstacles, started in- 

 land in July, 1883, from Tareta, at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro, and 

 for many months was unheard of. The wide tract of country lying be- 

 tween Mounts Kilimanjaro and Kenia and the Victoria Nyanza Lake 

 had never been trodden by a European. Mr. Thomson visited and photo- 

 graphed both of these mountains. Mount Kenia he describes as a great 

 volcanic cone nearly 30 miles in diameter at its base, rising from a thorn - 

 clad plain 5,700 feet above the level of the sea. Up to a height of about 

 15,000 feet the angle of ascent is very low, but from that level the mount- 

 ain springs into a sugar-loaf peak, the sides being so steep that in many 

 places the snow cannot lie, the uncovered parts showing as black spots; 

 hence the name Donyo Egar6 (the gray mountain). From Mount Kenia 

 Mr. Thomson pushed on, accompanying a caravan to the northwest, and 

 after a six days' march reached Lake Baringo. This lake he journeyed 

 round, fixing its shape, extent, and position, and thence pushed on to the 



