1868. | | Geography. 403 
character which he has written, there is soon accumulated an amount 
of fact which, without some nucleus of crystalization, is apt to flow 
away in a state of solution. 
The German expedition to the North Pole has started from 
Bergen, and Professor A. E. Nordenskidld has announced to the 
Royal Society that the Swedish Government has granted a steamer, 
provisioned for one year for the purpose of Arctic exploration, and 
that some private gentlemen have contributed towards fitting out 
the expedition. 
Earthquakes are recorded in the Sandwich Islands (near the 
volcano, Mauna Loa, which was in violent eruption) at Tachkent (?) 
and about Vesuvius. The latter mountain is being watched not 
only by Palmieri and several Italian savans, but also by Professor 
Phillips of Oxford. Very valuable records of the lengthy disturb- 
ances will have been made by these and other scientific observers 
of the changes that have taken place, and it is to be hoped that the 
theory of volcanoes will receive some enlightenment. 
We have to regret the death of Mr. John Crawfurd, whose face 
must be well known to all frequenters of our learned societies. His 
fame was won originally in the Malay peninsula, of which he wrote a 
history as well as a dictionary and grammar of the language, but 
he did not confine himself to matters connected only with that part 
of the world, but on most subjects, geographical and ethnological, 
he held, and frequently expressed, opinions of his own. He died at 
an advanced age in a sudden and peaceful manner. 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE Roya GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY. 
The safety of Dr. Livingstone having been doubted by some 
members of the Society in spite of the opinion constantly expressed 
by Sir R. Murchison, letters from that traveller which were read at 
the tenth meeting excited some considerable interest. The news in 
these, however, did not reach to a very late period, the doctor’s own 
letter being dated Bemba (lat. 10° 10’ §.), 2nd February, 1867, 
whilst that from Dr. Kirk contains news of him up to October last. 
The traveller, who had with him only the African boys educated 
at Nassick, Bombay, had remained at the town of Mataka, a chief 
whose dominions stretched from the watershed between Lake Nyassa 
and the sea to the lake itself, a distance of fifty miles. Hence the 
journey seems to have been continued westwards, but whether round 
or across the lake does not appear. The next points made seem to 
have been some of the tributaries on the left bank of the Zambesi, 
viz. the Chambese and the Loangwa, the watershed between which 
streams the doctor thought he had gained at Bemba. At the time 
he wrote he was making for Casembes, and thence he was to go to 
