GEOGRAPHY. 571 



As ;i good examx)le of what comi)reliensiv c geographical observation 

 ought to be, we refer to Dr. W. Sievers's accouut of liis travels in Vene- 

 zuela, which appeared in the MittheUungen of the Hamburg Geograph- 

 ical Society for 1884. He gives some interesting details of the effects 

 still to be traced of the great earthquake which shook the north coast 

 of South America on March 26, 1812, and describes a journey he 

 made from Caracas to Puerto Oabello in November and December, 1884. 

 Dr. Sievers was a pupil of Professors Richtofen and Wagner, and was 

 trained as a geographer with a view to geographical explorations. 



Mr. E. H. Glaisher's journey on the Berbice River and Wieroonie 

 Creek will i^dd materially to our knowledge of the interior of British 

 Guiana, which has been almost a terra incognita. 



M. Condrean has — as the result of one of his six journeys in Guiana — 

 brought back materials for two new maps, the one of the region between 

 the Oyapock, Yari, Amazons, and Atlantic, the other of Southern Gui- 

 ana between the Branco and Paru. 



M. J. Chaff'aujon's explorations on the Orinoco have already corrected 

 many errors in the charts of its course. M. Thouar has gone on a new 

 expedition to complete his work on the samQ river. 



OCEANICA. 



The first annual meeting of the Victoria branch of the Geographical 

 Society of Australia was a most flattering success. The contributions 

 were numerous, and many of them by distinguished authors. 



Mr. B. Greenebaum, United States consul at Samoa, reports that a new 

 island has been thrown up out of the sea about 40 miles off the Tonga 

 Islands, bearing towards the Fiji Islands, and in the track of California 

 vessels. It is 2 miles long and 250 feet high, and is in latitude 20° 28' 

 south and longitude 175° 21' west. Mr. Shipley, consul at Auckland, 

 New Zealand, confirms the above in a report to the State Department, 

 and gives interesting particulars. He thinks the island is at least 2 or 

 3 miles long and GO feet high, in latitude 20° 21' south, longitude 175° 

 28' west. 



The death is announced from Sydney of Thomas Boyd, the first man 

 to cross the Murray River and the last surviving member of Hume and 

 Hovell's exploring party. 



An excellent description and resume of the history of the Caroline 

 and Pelew Islands was published in Nature^ September 10, 1885. 



The AxM'il issue of the Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society 

 contains an account of a recent exploring expedition into the King 

 country of the North Island, New Zealand. This country, containing 

 some 10,000 square miles, is the Maori stronghold, and after the war of 

 1863-'G4 white men were forbidden to enter, under pain of death. It 

 had thus never been surveyed prior to Mr. Kerry-Nicholl's expedition, in 

 1883. In the course of GOO miles of travel twenty-five ri.A'ers, not pre- 

 viously shown upon the maps, and two small lakes were found 5 the 



