GEOGRAPHICAL PROGRESS, ETC. 



GEOLOGY, EXPERIMENTAL. 417 



Captain Do Bruyne, sailed from Amsterdam 

 Jinn- :;, 1*79, on her second attempt to reach 

 Fran/-.li>sef Land. The crew numbered nine 

 men. II. M. Speelman had charge of the mag- 

 netic observations. Mr. W. G. A. Grant again 

 accompanied the party as photographer, and 

 Mr. L. Do Jeudu, student at Utrecht, as zoolo- 

 gist. Captain Do Bruyne was assisted by two 

 oHicers, Mr. Broeklurjen, Lieutenant first class, 

 and Mr. Kalmeyer, Lieutenant second class. 

 The cruise was successful, as on the 7th of 

 September Mount Brunn on McClintock Island 

 (a part of Franz-Josef Land) was sighted ; the 

 first time that the newly discovered continent 

 had been seen from a sailing vessel. The 

 Barents began her return voyage on the same 

 date, and reached Hammerfest on September 

 18th. A number of scientific observations 

 were made during the cruise. 



Captain A, H. Markham, R. N., and Sir Hen- 

 ry Gore Booth made a pleasure excursion to 

 the Barents Sea in the Isbjorn, a sailing vessel 

 of about 43 tons burden. They left Tromsd 

 on the 18th of May, and, passing through the 

 fiords to the southward of North Cape, made 

 the first ice on June 4th, forty miles from the 

 " Goose Coast " of Nova Zembla. The Matosh- 

 kin Shar was found to be impassable on the 

 26th, so they shaped a course northward along 

 the west coast of Nova Zembla until they were 

 stopped by the ice off Cape Nassau. On July 

 81st they passed through the Matoshkin Shar, 

 but found the Kara Sea full of heavy floes, and 

 therefore returned by the same strait. On 

 August 18th they met the Dutch expeditionary 

 vessel William Barents. The Isbjorn was then 

 steered northward along the west coast once 

 more, and this time succeeded in rounding 

 Cape Nassau, and reaching as far as Cape 

 Mauritius, the extreme northeastern point of 

 Nova Zembla. Finally pushing due northward 

 between Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla, on the 

 meridian of 47, they met the ice in latitude 

 78 N., and succeeded in penetrating through 

 loose streams of it as far north as 78 24', thus 

 reaching within eighty miles of Franz-Josef 

 Land. Returning, they arrived at Tromso on 

 September 22d. The explorers made a good 

 natural history collection, and did some use- 

 ful geographical work by adding to our knowl- 

 edge of tli.' drift and nature of the ice" along 

 this important route to the pole. 



The steamer Jeannette, fitted out through the 

 liberality of Mr. James Gordon Bennett, sailed 

 from San Francisco on July 8, 1879, via Beh- 

 ring Strait, for the purpose of exploration and 

 discovery. She measures 420 tons, carries 

 thirty-two men, and is provisioned for three 

 years. The officers of the expedition are: 

 Lieutenant George W. De Long, U. S. N., 

 commander; Lieutenant Chipp, U. 8. N., ex- 

 ecutive officer ; Lieutenant Danenhower, U. 

 S. N., navigating and ordnance officer; Dr. 

 Ambler, surgeon; chief engineer, Melville; 

 ice-pilot, Dunbnr; Mr. Newcomb, collector of 

 specimens of natural history, etc.; and Mr. 

 TOL. xix, 27 A 



Collins, meteorologist and scientific observer, 

 also " Herald " correspondent. The Jeannette 

 reached Oonalaska August 2d, and was last 

 .MH M in the neighborhood of Herald Island on 

 September 8d. It was expected that she 

 would winter at some harbor on the coast of 

 Wrangell Land. 



The Franklin Search Expedition, which 

 sailed from New York on the 19th of June, 

 1878, went into winter-quarters on the 9th of 

 August of the same year, on the northern 

 shore of Hudson's Bay, in about latitude 64 

 N. and longitude 90 W. Reports from Lieu- 

 tenant Schwatka indicate that tho information 

 in reference to the missing relics of Sir John 

 Franklin, which formed the basis of the expe- 

 dition, was untrustworthy. It is probable that 

 the expedition will return to the United States 

 during the year 1880. 



GEOLOGY, EXPERIMENTAL. In the ar- 

 ticle on the FORMATION OF MOUNTAINS an ex- 

 ample has been given of the occasional valne 

 of experimentation in seeking an understand- 

 ing of the processes of nature in the geological 

 evolution. Although most of the conditions 

 under which the geological processes have 

 taken place can not be reproduced in the lab- 

 oratory, yet in individual cases new light can 

 be thrown on geological problems by chemical 

 and physical experiments. "When Sir James 

 Hall was able to obtain in his crucible a stony 

 mass, instead of the vitreous substance which 

 had been predicted, from the chemical constit- 

 uents of basalt, he established Hutton's propo- 

 sition that the basalts were of volcanic origin. 

 Bischoff in Germany and S6narmont in France 

 have studied experimentally some of the chem- 

 ical processes through which the mineral mass- 

 es of the earth have been formed with consid- 

 erable success. One of the most enthusiastic 

 students in this field is M. Daubree, Director 

 of the French School of Mines, who has been 

 engaged for over thirty years in investigating 

 geological phenomena by the application of the 

 experimental method, and has just published 

 a volume containing the results of his work. 



One of the most valuable successes obtained 

 by Daubree was the artificial production of 

 quartz crystals. Like most of his chemical ex- 

 periments, this one was conducted by subject- 

 ing the substance operated upon to extraor- 

 dinary pressure. This is necessary in order to 

 fulfill the conditions of the chemical changes 

 which take place far down under the earth's 

 surface, under an enormous weight of superin- 

 cumbent rocks. The operation is, however, at- 

 tended with much danger, and only after many 

 failures from the rupture of materials of in- 

 sufficient resistance can a successful result be 

 reached. Heating water in closed glass vessels 

 to a temperature at which the steam would of- 

 ten rend the strongest vessels apart like tinder, 

 he observed the action of the superheated wa- 

 ter on those which were able to withstand the 

 pressure for several days. The glass on the 

 inside of the tubes was found to be partly con- 



