Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 169 



gives the results obtained from them during a period of twenty 

 months. From a comparison of the dew-points determined by the 

 two methods, he concludes that the results show in a striking man- 

 ner the extreme accuracy of Mr. Glaisher's Tables, and afford ad- 

 ditional testimony to the value of the Greenwich Hygrometrical 

 Observations, and the resulting formula on which those tables are 

 founded. 



The author then refers to the subject of evaporation, and gives 

 the results of his own observations at Whitehaven during six years, 

 viz. from 1843 to 18i8 inclusive. From these he states that the 

 mean annual amount of evaporation is30"011 inches; and the mean 

 quantity of rain for the same period being 45"255 inches, the depth 

 of the water precipitated exceeds that taken up by evaporation, on 

 the coast in latitude 54^°, by ]5"24'4 inches. 



XXIII. Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 



GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY OF FRANCE. 



f N a former volume of the Philosophical Magazine * we recorded 

 *■ the award made by this Society of its gold medal to Dr. Beke for 

 his extensive exploration in Abessinia, in respect of which the gold 

 medal of the Royal Geographical Society of London had previously 

 been conferred on him. We have now to announce that that tra- 

 veller has returned the French medal under circumstances of a some- 

 what peculiar character. It is well known to the scientific M'orld 

 that Dr. Beke has long entertained doubts as to the reality of a 

 journey alleged to have been performed by M. d'Abbadie to the 

 country of KafFa to discover the source of the Nile, and that he has 

 recently published a pamphlet, under the title of " An Inquiry into 

 M. d'Abbadie's Journey to KafFa," in which he has adduced argu- 

 ments and proofs intended to show that that journey could not pos- 

 sibly have taken place. 



Previously, however, to the publication of this pamphlet, M. d'Ab- 

 badie had availed himself of the Bulletin of the Geographical Society 

 of France to make repeated attacks on Dr. Beke ; and on the latter's 

 seeking to reply thereto in the same journal, he was not only denied 

 that right, but the Society itself volunteered an adverse critique of 

 a jjaper of liis on the languages of Abessinia, printed a short time 

 since in Berghaus's Physikalischer Atlas, which critique, from in- 

 ternal evidence, is considered by Dr. Beke to have emanated from 

 M. d'Abbadie himself. Under these circumstances, and seeing that 

 the Society has conferred its gold medal on M. d'Abbadie for a 

 journey which Dr. Beke believes to be a fabrication, he has returned 

 the medal awarded to himself, and has given his reasons for so doing 

 in a letter to M. de la lloquctte, the General Secretary of the Central 

 Committee of the Society, which he has had jirinted for general distri- 

 butionf . In this letter Dr. Beke says, " When I now see the Society 

 not merely refusing to do justice, but actually descending from the 

 * Vol. xxi.\. p. 7-'i. •5ril Scries. 

 t Publisiied hv J. Miuldeii, Leadenhall Street. 



