GEOGRAPHICAL KXI'I.ORATIONS AND DISCOVERIES IN 1867. 



355 



in ami tn I'arahyhn, 

 > (,-ilit'iit '.MI mile-) in length ; 

 that iVtini Bahia toward Alagoinhas, 

 kilometres (almiit 7~> mile-o in length; from 



mbucotol na, i _'!. !i kilometres (about 77 



: from Santos to .Inndiahy, 1.V.I kilome- 



> I mile-); from \'ill;i Nova to Caxooira, 



..ilometrcs (about 80 miles); and from 



Ilio .Janeiro to Ma'.ia, 17..") kilometres (nearly 



1 1 mi 



Captain .lo'm ('ndman. an accomplished sail- 

 or and captain of a steamship, which plied for 

 time between the coast ports of South- 

 ern Brazil, published, in 1807, a volume enti- 

 Ten Months in Brazil/' which contained 

 in a small compa>s much valuable information 

 in regard to the commerce, resources, agrieul- 

 tnre, manufactures, and people of Brazil, its 

 climate, .-urface, and advantages for immi- 

 grants. While his pictures of the country 

 and its inhabitants were not so roseate as 

 of other tourists, they were replete 

 with sound sense, and could not fail to be use- 

 ful to those who were inclined to emigrate to 

 the Krn/ilian empire. Of the other South 

 American states there are but few geographi- 

 cal iti-m- to bo gleaned. Doctor Martin de 

 Mon-sy. an eminent French geographer, long 

 resident in the Ar;/< nfitie Confederation, has 

 prepared, mostly from personal observation 

 and survey, during the last twenty years, an 

 atlas of that republic, containing thirty maps, 

 ami throwing great. light upon the topography, 

 orography, political geography, and history of 

 9 which compose it. He has by 

 numerous carefully and accurately drawn sec- 

 tions of the country from east to west, from 

 northeast to southwest, and from northwest to 

 southeast, shown the practicability of railways 

 across the passes of the Andes. The atlas is 

 one of the finest contributions to geographical 

 science yet made from South America. 



M. 1'i is, the veteran Chilian geographer, has 

 for ten years past engaged in preparing a 

 map from actual surveys, under the authority of 

 the Chilian Government, of that interesting 

 country. Though the projection and details are 

 nearly completed, it has as yet been engraved 

 only in outline. The census of Chili taken in 

 18G5 was published during the last year. The 

 population by that census was 1,819.223, ex- 

 chisive of the Indians of Aranco and Valdivia, 

 who are estimated at 80,000 persons. The 

 director of the statistical bureau is satisfied, 

 from the incompleteness of many of the returns, 

 that ten percent, should be added to the cen- 

 sus to give the real population of the republic, 

 which would then amount to 2,081,145 per- 

 sons. Of the inhabitants enumerated, 1,795,844 

 were native Chilenos, and 23,220 of foreign birth. 

 The increase in the census over that of 1854 was 

 880,108, or about twenty-six per cent. Tin- 

 proportion of males to females is 100 to 100.77, 

 through the whole republic, though in the min- 

 ing districts the men are largely in exoesa of the 

 women. There was one blind person to each 792 



inhabitant-, and on,- d. .f-mute to 1,814 inhabi- 

 tant. Kdiicalioii is at a ', 



who can r.-ad beinu' only l'.i::.v->. and those 

 who can read and u rite nl\ I .".:;. _".!., giving a 

 proportion .f the form.T to the whole p. 

 lion of I tu 7. 1. and of the latter of 1 to 0. 

 deducting the children nii'i 

 a proportion of readers of 1 to 5.9, and of those 

 who could read and write of 1 to 7.5. The 

 population of the principal cities of the repub- 

 lic was as follows: Santiago. 115.377; Val- 

 paraiso, 70,488; Talcu, 17,900; Concepcion, 

 18,958; La Serena, 18,660; ( 'opiapo, 13,881: 

 Ouillota, KM4U; New Chilian, 9,781; San 

 Felipe, 8,6%; Coqnimbo, 7,138. No other 

 towns exceeded 7,000 inhabitant-. 'I i<- area of 

 cultivated lands was 72,910 square kilom< 



EUROPE. There has been less than the usual 

 amount of geographical exploration conducted 

 in Europe during the year. In Great Britain 

 the Admiralty surveys have been continued, 

 the eastern coasts have been examined anew, 

 and some important changes discovered. The 

 shores of Bristol Channel have also been resur- 

 veyed, and the charts corrected. 



The future coal supply of Great Britain has 

 been for some years past a matter of no little 

 anxiety among the political economists of that 

 country. Prof. Thorold Rogers has, however, 

 demonstrated that there is no occasion for any 

 alarm on the subject, certainly not during the 

 next fifty or one hundred years. The coal- 

 fields of the British Isles cover an area of 

 3,925.000 acres, and the annual production is 

 now 86,000,000 tons, the largest consumption 

 being for the smelting of metals. This con- 

 sumption might be tripled, and there would yet 

 be a sufficient supply, accessible without ex- 

 cessive cost of mining, for a century. 



In France the most important geographical 

 item is the intended enlargement by the Gov- 

 ernment of the Canal du Midi, which now ex- 

 tends from the River Garonne at Toulouse to the 

 Mediterranean near Agde, a distance of about 

 150 miles. The River Garonne can, without 

 much difficulty, be made navigable from irs 

 mouth, at Bordeaux, as far as Toulouse, for the 

 largest steamships ; but the enlargement of the 

 canal to the size needful to admit the steamships- 

 of-the-liue of the French Navy will he an expen- 

 sive undertaking, and will require for the addi- 

 tional water the collecting in reservoirs of the 

 waters of the streams flowing down the Pyre- 

 nees. This great enterprise once accomplished, 

 the French fleet can go from the Atlantic to the 

 Mediterranean without passing Gibraltar. M. 

 Delesse, an eminent French engineer, has, as 

 the result of a long series of . soundings along 

 the coast, constructed a lithological map of the 

 seas of France, giving in detail the geob 

 character of the bottom as ascertained by 

 sounding. 



M. Casimir de la Marre, a French geographer. 

 ha-- explored, within the past two years, very 

 thoroughly, the province of Almeria, in the 

 south of Sti>n. on the Mediterranean, and has 



