GEOGRAPHICAL PROGRESS AND DISCOVERY. 



335 



ing to the northwest. His intention the fol- 

 lowing season was to carry his explorations 

 beyond the point reached in 1880. The ease 

 with which the crew of the Eira crossed over 

 to Nova Zembla in open boats confirms the be- 

 lief held by many that in many years steamers 

 could find a route in the autumn across the 

 Barents Sea. 



None of the Arctic voyages of 1882 was 

 successful. The Dutch exploring vessel Will- 

 iam Barents was unable to enter Kara Sea on 

 account of the ice. Sir G. Gore-Booth was 

 not more fortunate in the Kara. Trading-ves- 

 sels bound for the Yenisei were obliged to turn 

 back. Captain Hovgaard, who was bound for 

 Cape Tcheliuskin, in the Dymphna, was ice- 

 bound near Waigat Island. The Varna, while 

 carrying a party of Dutch meteorologists to 

 establish an international station at Dickson's 

 Harbor on the Yenisei, was caught in the pack 

 in the same place. 



Captain Weyprecht's scheme of establishing 

 permanent meteorological stations for taking 

 simultaneous observations of atmospheric and 

 magnetic phenomena at many different points 

 around the pole has been carried out at last. 

 There are about 200 observers, sent by the 

 leading governments of the world, in 15 prin- 

 cipal and 24 subsidiary stations, who will con- 

 tinue their observations until the end of Au- 

 gust, 1883. Upon their return they will all 

 meet in London to compare their records and 

 exchange views. The 15 main stations are as 

 follow : two Russian, one on the Lena delta 

 and one at Karmankuli Bay, in Nova Zem- 

 bla ; one Dutch, at Dickson Harbor ; two Nor- 

 wegian, one at Sodan Kylar, in Finland, and 

 one at Bossekop, in Lapland ; one Austrian, on 

 Jan Mayen ; one Swedish, at Cape Thordsen, in 

 Spitzbergen ; one Danish, at Godthaab, in 

 Greenland ; one German, at Cumberland 

 Sound ; two American, one in Lady Franklin 

 Bay and one at Point Barrow ; one British and 

 Canadian, on the Great Slave Lake; one 

 French, at Cape Horn ; one German, in South 

 Georgia ; and one Italian, at Villa Colon, near 

 Montevideo. The establishment of the two 

 latter is the commencement of investigations 

 around the south pole. 



The German international meteorological 

 station at Cumberland Sound was established 

 in August, at Kingawa Fjord, in 66 37' north 

 latitude, and 67 15' west longitude. The ob- 

 servers remain one year. They encountered 

 an unusual amount of ice in Davis Straits and 

 made their way through the sound with diffi- 

 culty. The British charts were found to be 

 worthless, nearly all the positions being wrong, 

 the latitudes nearly a degree out of the way. 

 Dr. Wilhelm Giese, of the Berlin Observatory, 

 is the chief, with Dr. Leopold Ambroun as 

 assistant meteorologist ; two physicians conduct 

 naturalistic researches. The Austrian interna- 

 tional expedition to Jan Mayen, recruited from 

 the navy, and commanded by Lieutenant Wohl- 

 gemuth, was unable to approach the island at 



the end of May ; but, returning in June, they 

 reached Jan Mayen on the north side, and, after 

 being retarded a fortnight by the shore-ice, 

 anchored in Mary Muss Bay, and landed in the 

 middle of July. The observatory was erected 

 in 71 north latitude, and 8 26' west longitude. 

 Exploring the Beerenberg volcano to the edge 

 of the crater, 5,000 feet above the sea, they 

 perceived subterranean rumblings and saw sul- 

 phurous smoke issuing from crevices in the 

 sides of the mountain. 



ASIA. The Russian commission which has 

 been studying the problem of turning the Amu 

 Darya into its old channel and making it flow 

 into the Caspian instead of the Sea of Aral, 

 have given up the task in despair. There is 

 no doubt that the Uzboi was the ancient chan- 

 nel of the Oxus ; but to deflect the river into 

 its old bed would be to turn it into the old 

 lake-basin of Sara Kamysh, which is greater in 

 extent than the Aral Sea, and where the evap- 

 oration is so great that the Oxus could never 

 fill it again. The Russian engineer Lessar as- 

 serts that there exist other lake-basins of the 

 same kind, and that Serakhs and other places, 

 visited by him in 1881-'82, lie considerably 

 below the level of the Caspian Sea. 



AFRICA. The French have displayed a fe- 

 verish activity in Africa, as well as in Asia and 

 other fields, for trade and colonization. One 

 of the schemes which they have pursued with 

 the greatest eagerness has been the commercial 

 development of their possessions in Senegambia 

 and the extension of French influence and 

 commerce in the interior. The trans-Sahara 

 Railway, with which it was expected to tap 

 Timbuctoo and the Soodan, has been given up, 

 and the scheme of conducting the Mediterranean 

 waters through an artificial channel into the 

 salt basins of Algeria has been abandoned. 

 The only scheme which rivals the Senegambian 

 project is De Brazza's for tapping the trade of 

 equatorial Africa. In Northwest Africa, as 

 everywhere, the French have rivals in the 

 English, in whose colony at the mouth of the 

 Senegal is the natural outlet for the trade of 

 the interior. France has been strengthening 

 her political position in these regions for sev- 

 eral years. In 1881 Captain Gallieni induced 

 King Ahmadu, of Sego, on the Niger, to place 

 himself under French protection. Kita, a place 

 which lies half-way between the Niger and the 

 Senegal, has been occupied by the French mil- 

 itary. An ( expedition set out late in 1882, 

 under Colonel Borgnis-Desbordes, to construct 

 a fort at Bamaku, and launch a fleet of steam- 

 boats on the Niger. Another expedition, of 

 engineers and workmen, departed to build a 

 railway between the Niger and the head of 

 navigation on the Senegal. 



The emulation of explorers in equatorial 

 Africa has given place to the bitter feelings of 

 national and commercial rivalry since the re- 

 sources of the vast elevated interior have be- 

 come known. The two distinguished explor- 

 ers, Stanley and De Brazza, have both devoted 



