( 398 ) [July, 
7. GEOGRAPHY. 
(Including the Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society.) 
Tue attention of the Royal Geographical Society, so far as it is 
not concentrated upon individual interests or the exciting game of 
politics, is directed to the little band of men who, in their indomitable 
perseverance, their cautious advance, their submission to scientific 
arrangement, the purpose and success of their expedition, and even 
their ethnological heterogeneity, represent, with tolerable fidelity, 
the relation of the British empire to outer barbarians. Neither the 
smallness of the force sent to Abyssinia nor the contemptible cha- 
racter of our opponent, is a gauge of the interest felt by educated 
men in the success of the expedition; because it has been all along 
seen that the contest was rather against nature than against man, 
and that the prize to be won was mental and moral rather than phy- 
sical and political. That an engineer officer should be in command 
and that a select body of scientific men should accompany the force, 
was as essential to its character as that our Indian troops should make 
the roads, that “twenty men of the line, two artillerymen, an officer, 
and the Press,” should capture and turn thirty guns, or that a news- 
paper correspondent should criticize the “brilliant blunder” of a 
commander. The real and permanent advantage that we shall gain 
from the expedition depends to a greater extent upon the care and 
the cireumspection of the representatives of science, who, for the . 
first time, accompany an invading army, than upon the valour, the 
foresight, and the good fortune of our troops. 
Lieutenants Carter, Holdich, and Dumler, of the Royal Engi- 
neers, have been busy with a trigonometrical survey of the route of 
the army and of the country, from ten to fifteen miles on each side 
of it, including all the principal peaks visible along the road. This 
will furnish accurate data, to which may be hereafter safely added 
less carefully determined information. 
In the meantime, Mr. Clements R. Markham is obtaining his- 
torical and topographical detail of the lines of watershed, geological 
structure, zoological and botanical products, all of which will no 
doubt be given to the public in papers before the Royal Geographical 
Society and in periodical publications. Several other members of the 
expedition have also used their spare time in making zoological and 
botanical researches, whilst the excellent sketches that have from time 
to time appeared in our illustrated newspapers have made all the 
world acquainted with the peculiar characteristics of various kinds 
of scenery in Abyssinia, which for grandeur and picturesqueness 
could scarcely be equalled. 
A lecture on Abyssinia was lately delivered by Sir Samuel Baker 
