770 NATURAL SCIENCE. dec. 



are the valuable scientific appendixes prepared by " the distinguished 

 collaborators " of the compiler. We hope that these gentlemen 

 will feel equal satisfaction in the association, and appreciate the 

 title conferred upon them. The pronoun we is used throughout the 

 volume in a sense which is not altogether customary. It is employed 

 by Mr. Thomson as well when he is relating the exploits of Sir 

 William Macgregor, in which he can have had no part, as when he 

 is giving expression to his own opinions. For instance, on page i88 

 we find it stated, " to the knowledge of its (the Fly River) tributaries, 

 we have made several important accessions " — a way of putting it that 

 reminds one of the well-known story of the organ-bellows blower who 

 claimed an equal share in the compliments bestowed on the organist's 

 skill. 



In a work printed and published in 1892, we are surprised to 

 find no mention of the ascent of Mount Yule, so successfully accom- 

 plished on Christmas Day, 1890, by Mr. Belford, who accompanied 

 Sir William Macgregor to the summit, and the writer to the base of 

 Mount Owen Stanley ; nor any recognition taken of the elaborate 

 surveys of Commanders Pullen and Field, R.N. In this compilation, 

 the observations made by the officers under Sir Peter Scratchley 

 in the "Governor Blackall " are totally ignored, and places fixed 

 and entered in the map published for the Protectorate Government 

 soon after his death are claimed as new discoveries and re-named. 

 If Mr. Thomson could have condescended to consult the literature 

 of his subject, as authors who desire to be accurate generally do, he 

 would have found in the volumes of the Royal Geographical Society 

 of London information that might have saved him from many mistakes. 

 The observations also made during Mr. Douglas' voyages while Special 

 Commissioner are never referred to, nor are Mr. Milraan's, nor Mr. 

 Romilly's. Captain Moresby's thorough survey of the north-east coast 

 is apparently entirely forgotten in our compiler's eagerness to claim 

 renown at all hazards for the hero of his book ; for we read on 

 pages 172, 173, " this coast has hitherto been comparatively unknown 

 . . . Recently, however, the pall of obscurity which for ages 

 clothed the coast has been uplifted by the British New Guinea 

 Government, and we[!] are now enabled to describe the geographical 

 conditions with some degree of authorit}^" It is to be regretted also 

 that everywhere throughout the book the name Mt. Victoria is still 

 applied to Mt. Owen Stanley. On the occasion on which Sir 

 William Macgregor's paper was read before the Geographical 

 Society in London, the president pointed out that this peak had 

 borne for nearly forty years the name of the captain of H.M.S. 

 *' Rattlesnake," and that it had been distinctly given to the peak 

 and not to the range. We venture to believe that even Mr. 

 Thomson's persistent use of the new designation, in spite of the atten- 

 tion repeatedly called to the scientific illegality of the change 

 which he apparently intentionally ignores, will not be effectual in 



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