58 NATURAL SCIENCE. January, 



1884. Information has been accumulating at such a pace and recorded 

 in so many languages, that it was hardly to be expected that the work 

 could be made as complete as the original edition was at the time of its 

 publication. Mr. Keane tells us that "in some instances many carefully 

 prepared pages have had to be greatly modified and even rewritten " 

 during the preparation of this edition. It is no doubt due to the 

 haste of these alterations, that numerous errors have crept into the 

 work. The editor thinks the volume will be "welcome to students un- 

 able to consult the innumerable books of travel, scientific periodicals, 

 and memoirs" on South Africa ; but we hope that no serious student 

 will trust to the present volume as a summary of the results of even 

 the most important works on that district. Thus in spite of all the 

 recent explorations of the Cameroons, the author concludes his short 

 list of references with the journey of Lieutenant Morgen in 1890-91, 

 (p. 4). The ethnographical sections of this volume and the maps by 

 which it is accompanied are excellent ; but the rest is less satisfactory. 

 The author's political judgment may be estimated by his naive 

 reference to the time " when the little gap between Tanganyika and 

 Mfumbiro is obtained by agreement with Germany and the Congo 

 State," (p 333); and his political knowledge by the assurance of "tlie 

 supremacy of the English language as the almost exclusive instrument 

 of education throughout the South African Republic." We wonder 

 whether the people of Pretoria will be as pleased at this assertion of 

 the unimportance of the Dutch language, as the inhabitants of 

 Johannesburg are sure to be by this rude exposure of their most noto- 

 rious grievance. The author's competence to handle zoological 

 problems may be gauged by the statement that "the Cameroons do 

 not come within the zone of the true tsetse fly, which is here repre- 

 sented by the Glossina, an apparently closely allied but harmless 

 species." The compiler of a book on South Africa might have known 

 that Glossina is not a species but a genus ; that the fly thus named is 

 not harmless but deadly ; and that instead of being closely alHed to 

 the tsetse-fly, it is the tsetse-fly itself, the name of which is Glossina 

 morsitans. The author's choice of authorities is not always happy ; it 

 is amusing to those who have followed on Bateman's track, and 

 know the nickname by which he is called on the Congo, to find 

 him ranked with a few men such as Grenfell, Johnston, and Arnot, 

 as one of the " careful observers " who have studied the Congo natives. 



As an example of the author's speculations on physical geography 

 we may quote from p. 27 ; " Ascension lies right in the track of the 

 south-east trades, under whose influence, perhaps increased by the 

 occasional crash of huge icebergs from the Antarctic regions, the 

 Atlantic billows, twenty to thirty feet high, break with fury against 

 the windward coast." Ascension is situated only 9° from the Equator, 

 and the Antarctic icebergs do not come within thousands of miles of it ; 

 their crashing can have no more efl"ect on the surf of Ascension than 

 on the ripples of the Hampstead ponds. 



The book, however, ought to have a good sale among members 

 of the Stock Exchange, for its remarks on the mineral resources of 

 Bechuanaland and Rhodesia are most encouraging. The author quotes 

 (pp. 39^-392) a long paragraph from that optimistic reporter Mr. F. 

 Mandy, to the effect that the northern slopes of Mashonaland "will 

 eventually prove to be the alluvial goldfields of the world. The 

 neighbourhood of the Amazoe and its tributary streams is a veritable 

 El Dorado." This the editor states to be borne out by recent research, 

 a remark which ought to be very encouraging to city financiers when 

 coming from such a geographical authority as Mr. A. H. Keane. The 



