GATES, WILLIAM. 



GEOGEAPHIOAL EXPLORATIONS. 291 



G 



GATES, Brevet Brigadier-General WILLIAM, 

 colonel Third Artillery, U. S. A., a brave and 

 meritorious army officer, born in Massachusetts, 

 in 1788 ; died in New York City, October 7, 

 1868. He entered the Military Academy at 

 West Point in 1801, and graduated in 1806, 

 when he was appointed second lieutenant in 

 the regiment of artillerists, and served in gar- 

 rison at Atlantic posts until 1812; when the 

 war with Great Britain commenced, he was 

 appointed acting adjutant of a regiment of 

 light artillery, and aide to General Porter. 

 He had been advanced to a first lieutenancy 

 in 1807, and in March, 1813, was promoted to 

 be captain of the regiment of artillerists. He 

 was engaged in the capture of York (now To- 

 ronto), Canada West, and in the bombardment 

 of Fort George. In May, 1814, he was trans- 

 ferred to the corps of Artillery, and served in 

 garrison and frontier duty for several years. 

 On the reorganization of the army in June, 

 1812, he was made captain in the Second Ar- 

 tillery, and in 1823, brevet major. He re- 

 mained in garrison duty till 1832, when, during 

 the troubles in regard to nullification in South 

 Carolina, he was stationed at Fort Moultrie, in 

 Charleston harbor, with his command (he had 

 been promoted to be major in May, 1832). He 

 took an active part in nearly all the Indian 

 troubles, having captured Osceola in person, 

 and escorted the Cherokees to the Indian Ter- 

 ritory ; and, when the war with Mexico broke 

 out, he accompanied the Third Artillery as 

 colonel/ In 1846, and for two years subse- 

 quent, he acted as Governor of Tampico, Mexi- 

 co. Since then he had done many years' ser- 

 vice in garrison. He retired from active ser- 

 vice in 1863, and was brevetted brigadier-gen- 

 eral in 1865, for long and faithful services. 

 General Gates was one of the old school one 

 of the few remaining links that connect us with 

 the past. He was engaged for sixty-two years 

 in his country's service. General Gates was 

 the father of seventeen children, only seven of 

 whom survived him, the youngest being .but 

 seven years of age. He was buried on Govern- 

 or's Island, New York harbor, by the side of 

 his son Major Gates, who fell in the Mexican 

 War. 



GEOGRAPHICAL EXPLORATIONS AND 

 DISCOVERIES IN 1868. The /ear 1868 has 

 been more remarkable for physical phenomena, 

 earthquakes of a terribly destructive character, 

 violent volcanic eruptions, and the depression 

 of considerable tracts of the earth's surface, and 

 for changes in political geography caused by 

 revolutions, wars, etc., than for any of those 

 great discoveries which have made some of the 

 years of the past decade so conspicuous. No 

 great exploration has been crowned with per- 

 fect success, so far as we are aware, during the 



past year, except that of Carl Mauch, into the 

 hitherto untrodden regions between the Lim- 

 popo and the Zambesi, which has resulted in 

 the finding of extensive gold-fields, to which 

 thousands have since been hastening. At this 

 time we are uncertain whether Livingstone, 

 now supposed to be slowly making his way 

 to the Lower Nile, has definitely settled the 

 question of the ultimate sources of the Nile ; 

 and we are equally in the dark as to the recent 

 progress of that intrepid and daring traveller 

 Gerhard Rohlfs, in his adventurous journey 

 into the kingdom of Wadai, from Abyssinia 

 and Eastern Africa. War, which sometimes, 

 as in the case of the Abyssinian expedition, 

 promotes our geographical knowledge, offcener 

 tends to obscure and prevent it. In Central 

 Africa, in South America, and in China, and 

 Middle Asia, it has sadly hampered and de- 

 layed the movements of explorers, and often 

 put them in great peril. 



But the year, though not prolific in discov- 

 eries, has been one of more than ordinary mor- 

 tality among the friends and promoters of 

 geographical research. Lieutenant Le Saint, 

 whose departure on an expedition across the 

 African Continent, we chronicled in the AN- 

 NUAL CYCLOPAEDIA for 18<57, fell a victim to the 

 deadly paludal fever of the Upper Nile, in 

 April, 1868, at Abu Ktika, 120 miles north of 

 Gondokoro. Charles John Andersson, a brave 

 and intrepid explorer, whose "LakeNgami" 

 and " Okavango River " give evidence of his 

 daring and h** scientific qualifications as a ge- 

 ographer, b<td made his home in Herrero-Land, 

 and, after encountering perils and wounds 

 which bad materially impaired his health, died 

 of fev^r, near Ondonga Southwest Africa. 

 Rev- Pierce Butler, rector of Ulcombe, Kent, 

 an accomplished geographer and physicist, 

 who had made two very careful and thorough 

 reconnoissances of the Sinaitic peninsula, and 

 had arranged for a third and more complete 

 exploration of that entire region, under the 

 auspices of the Royal Geographical Society, on 

 which he was to have set out on the very day 

 on which he died (February 8th), succumbed 

 to a sudden attack of illness, greatly to the 

 distress of his friends and the loss of science. 

 John Crawfurd, a veteran traveller and geog- 

 rapher, more critically acquainted with the 

 entire East-Indian Archipelago, Burmah, Siam, 

 and British India, than any man of our time, 

 a man whose careful research and fulness of 

 knowledge on all geographical subjects had 

 made him at times perhaps a little captious, 

 and had caused his associates in the Royal 

 Geographical Society to give him the title of 

 Objector-General, but who was nevertheless a 

 most accomplished scholar in all departments 

 of physics, died very suddenly, though at the 



