482 NE WS [june 1899 



On May 8, Sir Martin Conway lectured to the Royal Geographical Society 

 on his latest piece of exploring work in the Bolivian Andes. His survey was 

 mostly confined to the western slopes of the Cordillera, " the backbone of 

 Bolivia," and he hopes on his next visit to make an equally careful survey of 

 the eastern slope. He gave some striking illustrations of the power of rivers 

 and glaciers to eat their way backwards through vast mountains — in one 

 instance a tributary of the Beni River, which flows into the Amazon and so 

 into the Atlantic, having actually eaten its way back, clean through the 

 Cordillera, and so drained a portion of the western slope of the range into the 

 Atlantic. Sir Martin stated that the whole range was highly mineralised, but 

 of the distribution of the minerals he could not say much. Gold was found at 

 several points, chiefly on the east side of the range. Just below the snowy 

 mass of Cacaaca on the west there is a really enormous vein of tin, while 

 antimony, cobalt, and, he believed, platinum had been found in different parts. 

 Subsequently Sir Martin Conway climbed Aconcagua, but his ascent was not a 

 scientific, merely a sporting expedition. 



The Scientific American gives a record of slaughter which, if authentic, is 

 not without interest. It is to the effect that on Prince Schwarzenberg's 

 preserves in Bohemia 106,604 wild animals were killed during last season, — 

 including 200 deer, 250 boars, 27,000 hares, 39,000 grouse, and 6000 wild 

 geese and ducks. 



An edge of the seamy side of the collecting mania was recently exposed in 

 Paris by the detection of an "egg-forger," who "made fly-catchers' eggs into 

 those of the silk tail, and ducks' eggs into those of falcons, and larks' eggs into 

 nightingales." A penguin's egg was made — not exactly out of nothing, but out 

 of plaster of Paris and the like. As the counterfeits are almost indistinguish- 

 able, they would serve most purposes very well, and one almost wishes prosperity 

 to the crime. 



In a recent number of La Nature, Mr. Henry Castrey gives an analysis of 

 the manna of the desert (Ganona esculenta), which appears abundantly on the 

 sand after rain, sometimes in great heaps. The analysis shows the following 

 composition : — Water, 16 per cent. ; nitrogenous matter, 14 per cent. ; non- 

 nitrogenous matter, 29 per cent. ; carbohydrates, 32 per cent. ; fat, 4 per cent. ; 

 mineral matter, 5 per cent. 



