154 



NATURE 



\Pec. 23, 1875 



severance, and determination can command success, Signer 

 D'Albertis ought to be successful. 



The island is about six miles long, picturesque, and healthy- 

 lo»king. The soil is rich, and the plantations of the natives are 

 numerous. The geological formation consists entirely of a 

 calcareous sedimentary rock, containing numerous remains 

 closely resembling recent forms. The appearance of the opposite 

 shore of New Guinea is very different from that at Katow. 

 Mangrove swamps are intersected by salt-water creeks, with low 

 ranges of well-wooded open forests behind ; beyond which the 

 country seemed to become very rough and mountainous, with a 

 stupendous mountain chain, on a clear day distinctly visible from 

 the magnificent peak of Mount Yule on the west, to Mount 

 Owen Stanley on the east. The natives of the country here- 

 abouts are light-coloured, of medium size and active. Their 

 hair is not woolly, and is generally worn long, being tied up in a 

 chignon behind. They do not use tobacco, but chew the betel 

 leaf. They wear a very tight belt, carrying a small piece of 

 cloth. They seem to be timid and inoffensive, greedy and 

 thievish. The women appear to be the rulers, and they are far 

 from reticent in the presence of strangers. Some of the younger 

 ones are tolerably good-looking ; they wear showy loin dresses, 

 and are tattooed about the breasts and belly. Their villages and 

 houses are clean, and generally on sloping ground ; they have a 

 house in every village for the reception of guests ; their muiual 

 relations seem most friendly. They pay considerable attention 

 to cookery, and manufacture pottery, cloths, and nets of excellent 

 quality. 



Mr. Macleay remained on Yule Island until Sept. 2, collecting 

 and exploring. No Birds of Paradise were obtained, although 

 many plumes were seen in the hands of natives. No Tree 

 Kangaroo nor Cassowary was seen. He then, on account of 

 adverse winds, returned to Cape York, and so terminated this 

 unsuccessful attempt to explore New Guinea. 



It may be mentioned that Dr. James, the surgeon, Mr. 

 Knight, one of the botanists, and Mr. Pollard, one of the taxi- 

 dermists from the Chevert, have undertaken an independent ex- 

 pedition to New Guinea on their own account, which though so 

 much more unassuming than the one above described, may on 

 that account have greater chance of success. 



NOTES 

 Dr. George Bennett, of Sydney, has been in correspondence 

 with Signor D'Albertis, the Italian naturalist now residing on 

 Yule Island, off S.E. New Guinea. From him we learn that Sig. 

 D'Albertis is on most friendly terms with the islanders ; that he 

 has made several excursions on to the main land, though in so 

 doing he has been much delayed on account of his boat having 

 been stolen by four of his own men. He afterwards, however, 

 managed to purchase a canoe, and has visited five villages, the 

 language of the natives of which he can now speak pretty well. 

 On the coast he finds a fauna and flora much resembling North 

 Australia, but inland, on the mountains, the Papuan vegetation 

 predominates. He has succeeded in obtaining a perfect specimen 

 of his new bird of paradise, Paridisia raggiana, and has shot a 

 second specimen of the ground tree-kangaroo, Dorcopis luctuosa. 

 His health is excellent ; but an Italian companion has suffered 

 from fever and slight sunstroke. 



Lieut. Cameron has earned a high place as an explorer by 

 the work which he has so successfully and so quietly accom- 

 plished. It will be remembered that Cameron was sent out in 

 1873 to find Livingstone, whose fate was then unknown. On 

 his way to Tanganyika he learnt the fate of the great traveller, 

 but continued westwards and determined to carry out an explora- 

 tion on his own account. After surveying a great part of Lake 

 Tanganyika and discovering what he thought was likely to prove 

 an outlet to the westward, he proceeded to the Lualaba for the 

 purpose of finding out whether that river is connected with the 

 Congo or the Nile system. The latest news that Sir Heniy 

 Rawlinson had to annoimce in his address to the Geographical 

 Society about a month ago was that at the end of May 1874, 

 Cameron had finally left Ujiji for the West The telegrams 

 3ust received are very brief, and announce that he came out at 



Benguela and reached Loanda on Nov. 19, with fifty-seven 

 followers, ' ' all well." Cameron was forced by adverse circum- 

 stances to abandon the Congo route, and followed the water- 

 sheds between'] the Zambesi and Congo, He has thus accom- 

 plished the rare feat of marching right across the continent, and 

 will no doubt bring home many additions to our knowledge of 

 central tropical Africa, 



The Professorship of Physiology in the University of Glasgow 

 will be vacant at the end of the present session on account of 

 the resignation of Dr. Andrew Buchanan. 



We have received from Prof. Mohn, Christiania, a printed 

 paper giving a brief risumS of the meteorology of Norway for 

 1874. Monthly results of temperature are stated for forty-one 

 stations, and of rainfall for thirty stations, and these results are 

 compared with averages of previous years for those stations at 

 which observations have been continued for some time. These 

 forty-one stations show an increase in the number of the 

 stations of previous years, and we have much satisfaction in 

 learning that, as the result of a recent special grant by the Nor- 

 wegian Government, the stations have still further increased to 

 fifty, and that each of them has been furnished with minimum 

 thermometers and with new thermometer screws. Of the stations 

 sixteen are supplied with Fortin's barometer, sixteen with the 

 Kew barometer, thirty-one with wind-vanes and velocity-plates, 

 thirty-seven with rain-gauges, thirty-two with dry and wet bulb 

 hygrometers, nine of the coldest stations with hair hygrometers, 

 and all of the fifty with aneroids. In Prof. Mohn's energetic 

 and able hands highly valuable results may be looked for from 

 these changes and additions in the further development of the 

 meteorology of Norway, which plays so prominent a part in the 

 meteorology of Europe. 



The American Naturalist — the recognised organ of intercom- 

 munication between naturalists in America — will pass, at the 

 commencement of the coming year, into the hands of Messrs. 

 H. O. Houghton and Co., of Cambridge, Mass, It will still 

 be under the able editorship of Dr. A. S. Packard, jun., who 

 will be assisted by a number of eminent men of science, in all 

 departments. Indeed, the list of expected contributors for 1876 

 is a very strong one. The amount of matter in each number 

 will be increased, and articles will be introduced of a more 

 popular character than heretofore. We are glad to take this 

 opportunity of again calling the attention of English naturalists 

 to this excellent periodical. 



M. Dumas, the distinguished Perpetual Secretary of the 

 French Academy of Sciences, has been elected a member of the 

 Academie Franjaise in room of the lafe M. Guizot. Science has 

 now two representatives amongst the grandees of French literature 

 — M. Claude Bernard and M. Dumas. 



Sir Henry Rawlinson, President of the Geographical So- 

 ciety, has been elected a foreign member of the Geographical 

 Society of Paris. 



The Pall Mall Gazette is informed that Mr. Max Miiller has 

 been asked to accept a professorship at Florence, at the highest 

 salary ever offered to a professor in Italy. 



A telegram dated Adelaide, the i8th inst., states that Mr. 

 Giles's exploring expedition (see vol. xii, pp. 135, 194), fitted 

 out by the Hon. Thos, Elder, M,L.C., has arrived at Perth, 

 Western Australia, direct from Adelaide, This is the third 

 expedition that has crossed Central Australia within the last two 

 years. The first was that under Col. Warburton, from the tele- 

 graph line westwards, generally between 20° and 21° S. lat. ; 

 then Mr. Forrest crossed from Perth to the telegraph line by a 

 route about 5° farther south. Mr. Giles's route, we believe, hM 

 been much farther south than Mr. Forrest's ; judging from pre- 

 vious news, probably about 100 miles from the south coast. 



