296 Professor Bat/ley Balfour [April 20, 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 



Friday, April 20, 1883. 

 Sir Frederick Pollock, Bart. M.A. Vice-President, in the Chair. 



Professor Baylet Balfour, Sc.D. M.B. 



The Island of Socotra and its Recent Bevelations. 



The expression " our road to India " is one familiar to all inhabitants 

 of Britain. It immediately brings to the mind's eye that long line of 

 communication, commencing with Gibraltar on the west, and reaching 

 through Malta, Cyprus, the Suez Canal, to Perim and Aden, by 

 which intercourse with our vast Eastern Empire is maintained. But 

 on that line of communication there lies in the Indian Ocean a large 

 island, which, long before Britain had a road to India, — for India was 

 not her possession — w^as the object of ambition to the rival nations 

 struggling for supremacy in the East, but which in recent times, 

 though sighted by all vessels passing by the Eed Sea route to India or 

 to regions east from Aden, has remained a veritable terra incognita 

 on the threshold of civilisation. 



This island of Socotra lies off the N.E. corner of Africa in lat. 

 12^ 19' to 12° 42', and long. 53° 20' to 54° 80'. Its extreme length from 

 east to west is about 72 miles, and its breadth about 22 miles. 



From Cape Guardafui 140 miles, it is a little more distant from 

 the Arabian Coast (about 500 miles from Aden), and still further 

 away from the Indian Peninsula. 



It is the most easterly elevation of land on a coral bank lying to 

 the N.E. of Africa, upon which, between it and Cape Guardafui, 

 other islands (Abd-al-Kuri, Kal Farun, Sambeh and Darzi — known 

 commonly as 'I'he Brothers — and Saboynea) of smaller size occur. 

 On no part of this bank is the depth of water over 200 fathoms, but 

 between it and the African coast is a channel reaching 500 fathoms. 

 Around Socotra is a narrow coral reef. 



Perhaps no island of like extent, and lying, as one may say, on 

 the threshold of civilisation, has remained in later times so generally 

 unknown as Socotra. Situated on the highway of traffic to the East 

 by way of Suez and the Eed Sea, it is almost invariably sighted by 

 steamers making for or from the Gulf of Aden, and thus to those who 

 nave passed along this route, its locality, or at least its name, will be 

 known. To the scientific world it has been familiar as the country 

 of a kind of aloes, the designation of which as Socotrine, has by 

 some been traced to the name of the island. But to the majority of 



