276 Chronicles of Science. [| April, 
encamped by the river and killed two; the remainder embarked at 
the command of Baron von Schickh, the leader of the party in the 
camp, and descended the river with all speed in the injured vessel, 
leaving the Baron in the power of the Somali chief. The former 
and present British Consuls at Zanzibar express their opinion that 
the Baron von der Decken is retained at Berdera only with a view 
to obtain a heavy ransom, and that he runs no risk of his life. The 
commander of the British squadron has received commands from 
the Admiralty to render all the assistance in his power towards 
aiding this British expedition. Baron von der Decken had intended 
to cross the unknown parts of eastern Africa, and to strike the 
Eastern head waters of the Nile. 
After Africa and Australia, South America seems to offer the 
best field for ambitious geographers. In this continent the huge 
river Amazons affords a means of communication with the extreme 
limits of the interior, and a means of communication that is soon 
likely to be opened to all the world; the exclusive privilege granted 
to a Brazilian Steam Navigation Company being about to be with- 
drawn. ‘This great river could not of course penetrate all parts of 
the interior ; but it has been hoped that its tributaries might supply 
the wants of the principal channel. With a view of making this 
means of transit available to the people immediately to the east of 
the Andes, Mr. W. Chandless, M.A., has attempted to explore the 
River Purtis, a tributary of the Amazons, that has previously 
baffled native traders. He was entirely successful in tracing this 
stream from the parent river to its source, and discovered that it 
was not, what he had hoped it might prove, in connection with the 
Peruvian river, Madre de Dios, but that it ended two degrees 
farther north. The banks are completely shut in by impenetrable 
forest, so that in no part was a view of the neighbouring country 
obtamed by Mr. Chandless and his boat’s crew of Bolivian Indians, 
and the inhabitants at the upper extremity proved to be small 
tribes, who had held no communication with the semi-civilization 
below, and were consequently in the Stone Age. The course of the 
river is very tortuous, but unobstructed by rapids, and flows for 
1,866 miles. After the reading of the paper which described Mr. 
Chandless’s discoveries, the opinion was expressed by Mr. Bates that 
a river so tortuous, whose mouth was at a distance of 1,100 miles 
from the Atlantic, with such a small population on its banks, could 
never be made available for commerce. On the main stream 
steamers ply 3,100 miles from its mouth. 
