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GEOGRAPHICAL PROGRESS AND DISCOVERY. 



January he was elected by the Ohio Legisla- 

 ture Senator for the term beginning March 4, 

 1881, to succeed Allen G. Thurman. On the 

 8th of June, in the Chicago Convention, he 

 was nominated, and on the 4th of November 

 was elected to the Presidency of the United 

 States. He resigned his seat in Congress No- 

 vember 8, 1880. 



The life of James A. Garfield is the fullest 

 exemplification of the possibilities of American 

 citizenship on record. He began life in the 

 Ohio forest, poor as the poorest, and by his 

 own exertions, abilities, and character, he has 

 made his way upward to the highest place. 

 His road has Jed him by the log-house district 

 school, chopping fallow, tow-path, academy, 

 and college, to the Ohio Senate, the Army, 

 the House of Representatives, a senatorial 

 election, and to the Chief Magistracy of the 

 nation. 



GEOGRAPHICAL PROGRESS AND DIS- 

 COVERY. The most attractive fields for inves- 

 tigation are still the polar regions and equato- 

 rial Africa. The very completely equipped Arc- 

 tic stecm cruiser Jeannette, which sailed to the 

 Arctic Sea in the summer of 1879, under Captain 

 De Long, and which was spoken off Franz 

 Joseph Land late in the season, has not been 

 heard from, and doubts are felt as to the safe- 

 ty of the expedition, as they may have been 

 tempted to enter one of the temporary fiords 

 which form in the ice-pack, and closed in and 

 carried off by the pack, which drifts steadily to 

 the northeastward. The Cor win, which was 

 ordered by the United States Government to 

 search for her, returned without tidings ; but 

 in the exploration of the Alaskan coast this 

 expedition accomplished very satisfactory re- 

 sults. Lieutenant Schwatka has gone over the 

 region where the Franklin Expedition met its 

 fate, and so thoroughly, that the search for the 

 records of the Erebus and Terror will probably 

 not be again resumed. In Africa, the danger- 

 ous region between the Sahara and the Congo 

 is every year the grave of some hardy explorer. 

 The Italian Expedition under Chiarini and Cec- 

 chi was stopped on its way to Shoa by one of 

 the barbarous Mohammedan potentates, and 

 the former died in durance. Rohlfs endeav- 

 ored to penetrate to the Soodan from the 

 Mediterranean coast across the desert, but was 

 obliged to put back on account of the ferocity 

 of the inhabitants. The withdrawal of the 

 Egyptian garrisons in Soodan and the remis- 

 sion of Gessi Pasha's vigorous and successful 

 efforts for the suppression of the slave trade, are 

 discouraging for the exploration of the Soodan 

 and the region of the Welle, as well as for the 

 development of legitimate trade and the spread 

 of civilization in this part of the continent. 

 The misfortunes of the Belgian expedition have 

 not yet ceased. Captain Carter, who was en- 

 gaged to introduce the Indian elephant for the 

 Belgian Society into African transportation, and 

 his associate Cadenhead, have both been assas- 

 sinated by the natives. In Asia the Russians 



have reached and already passed the boundaries 

 of Thibet and China in their explorations. The 

 British Indian officers and their invaluable co- 

 adjutors, or rather pioneers, the pundits, have 

 penetrated into Thibet from the south, and are 

 every year including large tracts of new coun- 

 try in their very thorough reconnaissances. 



HYDROGRAPHY. The United States Coast 

 Survey has extended its operations lately to 

 the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, and 

 commenced a new investigation of the Gulf 

 Stream. Commander John H. Bartlett, on the 

 steamer Blake, has discovered a remarkable 

 depression in the Caribbean, the eastern end 

 of which is opposite Santiago de Cuba. It ex- 

 tends in a westerly direction from between 

 Cuba and Jamaica to the Bay of Honduras. 

 Its length is about seven hundred miles, and 

 its average width eighty miles. This subma- 

 rine valley, which is estimated to have a total 

 area of 85,000 square miles, shows nowhere a 

 depth of less than 2,000 fathoms, except over 

 the summits of submerged mountains in two or 

 three places. The greatest depth sounded was 

 3,428 fathoms. It was first struck at its east- 

 ern end, where, only twenty-five miles off 

 the coast of Cuba, the line suddenly sank to 

 3,000 fathoms. From the temperatures ob- 

 tained, Commander Bartlett was led to the 

 conclusion that the Gulf Stream enters the Gulf 

 of Mexico through the Caribbean, and that it 

 derives its temperature, which is higher than 

 that of the equatorial current, by passing over 

 shoals in the Caribbean, making perhaps the 

 entire circuit of that sea. The equatorial cur- 

 rent, striking against South America, is de- 

 flected north, and when it reaches the island 

 of Tobago all that can flow between this island 

 and the mainland and south of Granada does 

 so. This current is said to be felt along the 

 Spanish Main. The greater part of the equa- 

 torial current, however, is deflected north be- 

 tween Barbadoes and the Grenadines, finding 

 its way to the westward whenever it meets a 

 passage. It would naturally be driven toward 

 the Spanish Main by the trade- winds. The tem- 

 perature down to 400 fathoms was found to be 

 suddenly increased as Guadaloupe was passed. 

 The difference was so great that the most 

 probable explanation seems to be, assuming the 

 equatorial current to be the source of the Gulf 

 Stream, that the current remains for some time 

 in the Caribbean, traveling around the borders 

 of the sea, and being warmed by passing over 

 shoals and banks. The current said to flow 

 along the Spanish Main would be deflected by 

 the Isthmus and keep on flowing inside or to 

 the eastward of the banks connecting Jamaica 

 with the mainland, and so on south of St. Do- 

 mingo, part passing north through the Mono 

 Passage, and the remainder south of Porto Rico 

 to the Annesrada Passage to join the current 

 flowing north of Porto Rico and St. Domingo, 

 which is helped through the Windward Pas- 

 sage by northeast trade-winds. 



Another expedition for hydrographic explo- 





