GEOGRAPHY 479 



engaged iu examining the course of the Binue River, an affluent of the 

 Lower Niger, and lias discovered its source, and also that of the Logue 

 River, which discbarges into Lake Chad. Dr. Fischer, whose quarrels 

 with the natives while attempting to reach Lake Bahringo from the 

 east coast through the Masai country, were the cause of Mr. J. Thomp- 

 son's delays, has been obliged to return without accomplishing his 

 object. 



No region of Central Africa has been more thoroujahly and system- 

 atically explored of late years than the banks and surroundings of the 

 Congo River In a paper read before the Royal Geographical Society, 

 and published in the Proceedings of that society for December, 1883, 

 Mr. H. LT. Johnston gives a very graphic account of that great river 

 from its month to Bolobo, with a description of the physical aspect of 

 the surrounding country. Another good description was given in an 

 address iu March last before the meeting of the German Geographical 

 Society at Frankfort, by Herr Pechuel Loesche, who served as second 

 in command with Mr. H. M. Stanley at Stanley Pool. 



ARCTIC REGIONS. 



The expeditions sent to occupy stations in the far north for the pur- 

 pose of making meteorological observations under an international ar- 

 rangement have all returned safely, with the exception of the party 

 commanded by Lieut. A. W. Greely, U. S. A., which has occupied a 

 station at Lady Franklin Bay since the spring of 1881. Two ineffec- 

 tual attempts have been made to reach the party by relief ships, one 

 ship being turned back in 1882 by heavy ice, and another, the Proteus, 

 being suuk by the ice iu 1883. An expedition, consisting of three ships, 

 under command of Commander Schley, U. S. N., is now fitting out, and 

 no effort or expense is being spared to make a successful attempt to 

 bring away the survivors of the party, if any. 



The Austrian party have returned from Jan Mayen, and the Swedish 

 party from Spitzbergen, without casualty or illness. The Dutch expe- 

 dition lost their ship, which was nipped by the ice in Waigatz Strait, 

 but carried on all their observations successfully except those relating 

 to magnetism, although they did not reach their intended station at 

 Port Dickson. The other parties returned safely to their respective 

 countries. 



Under the auspices of the Danish Geographical Society theDijinphna, 

 commanded by Lieutenant Hovgaard, of the Danish navy, was dis- 

 patched from Denmark in the summer of 1882. Lieutenant Hovgaard 

 intended to proceed first to the mouth of the Yeuesei, then to Cape 

 Chelyuskin, and then to penetrate northward along the east coast of 

 Franz Josef Land. Leaving Vardo, in Norway, on August 3, 1882, the 

 Dijmphua soon found the way blocked by heavy ice, and it took all of 

 August to reach the Jugor Strait, between Waigatz Island and the 

 mainland of Siberia. A short distance to the eastward, on September 



