244 Chronicles of Science. | April, 
to be some difference of opinion in the Society as to whether the 
route by Smith’s Sound is really the most practical, a difficulty 
fatal to any strong pressure upon the Government to send forth an 
expedition at the expense of the nation. So long as scientific men 
are divided as to the expediency of an expedition, or as to the best 
route to be observed, so long will mere politicians be able to with- 
stand their importunities. 
The reasons for the preference of Smith’s Sound seem to be, 
that it is possible to travel far northwards along the coast, leaving 
depots where necessary, until the open water believed to exist 
around the pole itself may be reached ; whilst by both the other 
routes the journey will be by sea until the pack 1s met with which 
encloses the open water; this must be passed on foot, the explorers 
carrying boats with them until they come to a second sea, which 
must be traversed again in the small vessels which have been carried 
across the pack. Some authorities think the pack might be passed 
by well-built steam vessels, but anyhow whalers have penetrated 
nearer to the pole already by Smith’s Sound than by any other route. 
The most important papers read this Session were communica- 
tions from Mr. Clements Markham, describmg the physical geo- 
graphy of that portion of Abyssinia which has been visited by our 
troops. The country explored stretches along the coast from Zoulla 
to Howakel Bay, and includes the intervening peninsula; it then 
runs inland by the Tekonda Pass to Senafé, around which place a 
variety of expeditions have enabled Mr. Markham to form a good 
idea of the general character of the highland. A large river system, 
unknown to the maps, called Ragolay, runs from above Senafé to- 
wards the peninsula mentioned before, where, at some distance from 
the sea, the river is swallowed up in a salt plain, which is covered 
with incrustations caused by evaporation. This river appears to 
receive the drainage of all the eastern slope of the highlands; a cir- 
cumstance that forms a fair argument for supposing that the floods, 
during the rainy season in the Senafé Pass, are not usually so great 
as they have been reported to be. The country adjoining the coast 
is a sandy plain, intersected by the dry beds of torrents. The tide 
rises usually about 4ft. 6in., a slight imerease of which lays a con- 
siderable portion of the shelving plain under water. The mountains 
rise rather suddenly at a distance varying from 10 to 16 miles’ 
distance from the coast. The passes are hemmed in by enormous 
boulders, or by perpendicular sides, first of gneiss, and farther inland 
of dark schistose metamorphic rocks, and these again are succeeded 
by sandstone. The rise extends for 46 miles, until at Senafé— 
7,464 feet above the sea level—the tableland is reached: but few 
natural passes in the world are easier than those that have by this 
time been traversed by our troops. ‘The vegetation -grows richer 
and more varied as an advance is made inland. ‘Tropical trees and 
