478 SCIENTIFIC RECORD FOR 18G3. 



Port Moresby to Dyke Acland bay, a distance of 100 miles in a north- 

 east direction ; but after the death of Professor Denton, the naturalist 

 of the expedition, from fever, the party returned without having crossed 

 the island, only having penetrated to a distance of 40 miles from the 

 coast without making any discoveries of importance. Shortly after the 

 return of this expedition, another one, dispatched by another newspaper 

 concern, the Melbourne Age, under the command of Mr. G. E. Morrison, 

 started from Port Moresby with a similar object, viz, to cross the island 

 to the northeastern coast, but near the foot of the Central range the 

 party was attacked by natives, and, Mr. Morrison being severely 

 wounded, a hurried retreat was made to Port Moresby. Mr. Chalmers, 

 an English missionary residing in Southeastern New Guinea, has been 

 examining a part of the delta of the Fly River, and finds it more exten- 

 sive than had been supposed. He determined the fact of the cannibal- 

 ism of the natives as concerns their enemies, but found them generous 

 and hospitable. The interest excited in the exploration of this practi- 

 cally unknown island is so great that the labors of the present year will 

 probably increase materially our knowledge regarding it, but its sickly 

 climate and savage inhabitants make the task of exploration very diffi- 

 cult. 



AFRICA. 



Many explorers and travelers for geographical and commercial ob- 

 jects have, as for several years past, been engaged in journeys in Cen- 

 tral Africa, but no specially striking discovery has been made, and the 

 details of the numerous journeys are generally uninteresting and tedious, 

 although, taking the aggregate of results, a large amount of detail has 

 been added to the maps of Africa. English missionaries and consular 

 officers have been prominent in furnishing valuable material of this 

 kind. 



The expedition in charge of Mr. Joseph Thompson, and fitted out by 

 the Royal Geographical Society, left England in December, 1882, and 

 proceeded to Zanzibar; then proceeding inland from Mombasa, a port 

 about 140 miles to the northward of Zanzibar, reached Taveta, at the 

 the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro, on the 31st of March. On attempting 

 to penetrate farther inlaud he met with determined hostility on the 

 part of the Masai tribe, and was forced to return to Taveta. Starting 

 again in July with a larger force, he has (March, 1884) been unheard of 

 for several mouths. 



Among the numerous other travelers who have been exploring va- 

 rious parts of Central Africa during the past year are M. Revoil, who 

 has been traveling in the Somali country ; M. Giraud, who has under- 

 taken to cross Africa from Zanzibar by way of Lake Bangweolo and 

 the Congo, but who was turned back to Karema by the hostility of the 

 natives ; and Mr. O'Neill, Her Britannic Majesty's consul at Mozambique, 

 who has made a journey to Lake Shirwa and back to the coast. Mr. 

 R. Flegel has, under the auspices of the German African Society, been 



