48 



NATURE 



{May 1 8, 1876 



overtook them. It may, therefore, I think, be assumed that the 

 lake has never in recent times been so extensive as it is now, but 

 that formerly it was much more so. 



It will naturally be asked. What are the causes of its recent 

 rapid growth, and what is likely to be the end of it ? Without 

 doubt the chief cause lies in the killing of the trees, which, 

 until lately, covered almost uninterruptedly the whole basin 

 except the lowest portion. The water is thus drained rapidly 

 into the lake, and the surface exposed to evaporation reduced to 

 a minimum. The trees have been destroyed chiefly by the 

 squatter, in order to let ia the sun and improve the grass. But 

 another and unexplained cause has been at work during recent 

 years destroying the bush, and the trees have died away myste- 

 riously at the rate of scores, if not hundreds, of acres annually. 

 Grub at the roots or within the bark, the injury done by cattle 

 and sheep, opossums destroying persistently the young shoots, 

 and various other pests, have been set down as the cause, but no 

 explanation has as yet been accepted as satisfactory. It would 

 seem rather as if the trees were suffering from some sickness 

 such as animals are subject to, and many square miles of bush 

 may be cleared away before the disease has spent itself. 



Whatever may be the cause, the trees are rapidly disappearing 

 within the drainage area of the lake, and the result will be that 

 with improved drainage and less absorption the lake must in- 

 crease in extent during the next few years, provided the rain- 

 fall does not seriously diminish during the same period. Another 

 cause which has probably been at work enlarging the lake during 

 the last twenty-four years, is an increased rainfall, but the argu- 

 ment on this point is rather drawn from the rapid growth of the 

 lake than from any accurate observation. It has certainly hap- 

 pened once or twice during dry seasons that the lake has fallen 

 a foot or two, but it has always recovered and advanced during 

 the following year, so that its growth may be considered to have 

 been continuous since the year 1852. After the winter of 1874, 

 the lake rose from four to five feet, and during the severe drought 

 of the following summer sank to the extent of from one to two 

 feet, but with the returning rains it recovered its former level. 

 If, up to the present time, the first and wet half of a cycle has 

 been operating, and twenty-five years of deficient rainfall were 

 now to commence, it would still, I think, be unreasonable to 

 expect that the lake would contract very much — say to one-half 

 or one-quarter its present size. The water that falls at the most 

 distant spot in the basin is carried within a few hours into the 

 lake — in the same manner as in other parts of the country it is 

 carried into the rivers ; and the same cause which tends to make 

 the floods of the Hunter and other rivers more violent every 

 year, will prevent Lake George from ever again becoming an 

 insignificant pool. It may be noticed that cloudy summers — not 

 necessarily rainy ones — would have a considerable effect in dimi- 

 nishing evaporation and thereby preventing shrinkage. A pre- 

 valence of westerly or northerly winds would have an opposite 

 effect. 



Near one of the squatter's houses, long ago submerged, 

 was a well-stocked fish-pond. This the advancing waters soon 

 appropriated, and its occupants finding their way into the lake, 

 have increased to such an extent that the lake itself is now well 

 stocked. These fish were chiefly the freshwater cod of Aus- 

 tralian streams, and some of them have thriven so well that it is 

 by no means rare to meet with specimens weighing from thirty 

 to forty pounds each. Black swans, large flocks of three or four 

 different kinds of ducks, with the red-legged ibis and other birds 

 frequent the shores and afford good sport. 



The general appearance of the lake shore is somewhat deso- 

 late on account of the enormous number of partially submerged 

 trees that stand, some of them a mile or more, out in the water, 

 and give the lake the appearance of an American river during a 

 flood. The Eastern shore, however, is very beautiftU for Aus- 

 tralian scenery, the hills dotted with clumps of dark casuarina 

 rising in beautiful grassy slopes from the water's edge. 



At a few miles distance from Lake George to the eastward is 

 Lake Bathurst, a much smaller sheet of water that appears to be 

 under very much the same influences as the larger lake, the 

 encroachment of the water being as well marked, although not 

 so extensive. 



It would be interesting to know all the influences at work in 

 the increase of the Great Salt Lake, Utah, which is said to be 

 growing at the rate of ten inches in vertical height yearly. As 

 the whole country in the neighbourhood of this lake is destitute 

 of trees, a periodic increase of rainfall is most probably the chief 

 cause, in which case the lake's maximum may be expected to be 

 reached at any time. 



The cultivation of land previously bare might naturally be 

 expected to cause a greater retention of moisUir?, whilst at the 

 same time the hardening of the surface by the treading of cattle 

 and sheep would cause the water to run off more easily ; bnt the 

 area of cultivated or pastured land within the drainage basin 

 compared with that left in its primitive condition, is unknown, 

 and it would be impossible to differentiate their effects. 



It will be a subject of consideralile interest to watch the con- 

 duct of these lakes during the next twenty years. R. AbbaY 



The Cruise of the Argo 



Many useful suggestions were forwarded to me by the readers 

 of Nature before the yacht left Liverpool, in return for which 

 I send my best thanks and a list of the places we have visited in 

 the course of our most delightful and, as I trust, not unsuccessful 

 voyage: Jan. 24, Madeira; Feb. 7, Antigua; Feb. 12, Bar- 

 buda; Feb. 13, St. Kitts ; Feb. 14, Guadeloupe ; Feb. 13, 

 Dominica; Feb. 17, Martinique; Feb. 18, St. Vincent ; Feb. 

 20, Grenada ; Feb. 22, Trinidad ; March 9, La Guayra ; March 

 10, Caracas; March 17, Valentia ; March 18, Puerto Caballo ; 

 March 21, Tucacas ; March 27, Santa Marta ; March 29, Sava- 

 nilla ; March 31, Carthagena ; April 2, Kingston, Jamaica; 

 April 13, Havanna (Museum most creditable). We leave to- 

 morrow for Vera Cruz and the city of Mexico, with the 

 Bahamas, Philadelphia, New York, and Niagara in prospect. 

 We have had a clean bill of health and favourable weather 

 throughout. One of the chief objects proposed by Mr. Chol- 

 mondeley in undertaking the voyage was to observe the habits of 

 tropical birds in the west, and to increase his fine collection in 

 the aviaries at Condover. Amongst the very numerous speci- 

 mens of birds now on board are some that are extremely fine, 

 and such as have rarely been brought to England in a living 

 state. 



In marine collecting most has been done in sponges, tunicates, 

 and echinoderms. These, which have been gathered amply and 

 in the rough, will no doubt on examination yield some good 

 microscopic forms, and perhaps a few polyzoa, of which there 

 has been to me, a most deplorable scarcity. In botanising, very 

 fair success has been metjwith in Mosses, Lichens, and Junger- 

 manniae. A few most interesting fungi were collected in the 

 deep forest in Trinidad. Entomology has not been neglected, 

 but the extreme dryness of the season has been unfavourable. 

 Of the eminent men, true students of nature, it has been my good 

 fortune to meet, I must not now attempt to mention even the 

 names. My great obligations to them will I trust find a suitable 

 opportunity for acknowledgment. Henry H. Higgins 



Havana, April 10 



Recent Discoveries in New Guinea ; and Papua or 

 Papooa ? 



The ascent for ninety miles of a fine river in the south-east 

 portion of New Guinea, in September last, by the mission vessel 

 Ellengowan, has doubtless, before now, been made known in 

 England (Nature, vol. xiii. p. 76). 



I expect, during the present year, to leave Samoa on my 

 return to England, and I have some hope that I may take New 

 Guinea en route to Australia, and visit the mission stations of the 

 London Missionary Society on the south-east coast. If this hope 

 is realised, I shall use every available means to determine what 

 this large quadruped is, which has been tracked in three different 

 parts of the island, if no one else makes the discovery before 

 then.i 



In concluding this letter, I wish to enter a protest against Dr. 

 A. B. Meyer's orthography of the Malay names of New Guinea 

 and the frizzly-haired portion of its inhabitants. He says 

 (Nature, vol. ix. p. 77, note): "I write Papooas, and not 

 Papuas, because the Malays pronounce the word Papooa and 

 not Papua." Surely Dr. Meyer must be aware that the vowel u 

 in Malay is pronounced like 00 in English. As early as 1812 

 Marsdcn, in his Malay Grammar (p. 12), gives as examples of 

 the sound oiu the " English 00 in loom and tool." It appears 

 to me not only pedantic and unnecessary, but also very objection- 

 able, to make a change at the present time. Perhaps I feel 

 more keenly on this point than most persons, owing to the fact 

 that, with the assistance of a large staff of co-workers in various 

 parts of the Pacific, I have in progress a comparative grammar 



' It has been recently announced in the Sydney Herald that Siguor 

 D'Albertis has identified the large bird with the red-necked hornblll, and 

 the droppings as those of the cassowary. — Ed. 



