December 15, 1910] 



NATURE 



21 1 



area, is really not so ver)* restricted after all. The 

 notes and observations of explorers and Belgian 

 officials show that the okapi is met with from the 

 vicinity of Nyangwe, in the eastern part of the Congo 

 basin, at no great distance from the west coast of 

 Tanganyika and from between 4° and 5° south lati- 

 tude, to the River Welle at the same distance north 

 of the equator, and almost to the banks of the Sem- 

 liki River and the forests west of Lake Albert Nyanza ; 

 while its western range has already been extended 

 (north of the main Congo) to the lo\ver course of the 

 Mubangi River, which lies not far away from the 

 zoographical limits of the Cameroons district. In- 

 deed, it would not surprise me at all if some such 

 explorer as Mr. George Bates discovered the okapi 

 in the Cameroons hinterland, just as he has discovered 

 there the Black Forest pig, and other equatorial 

 African animals first recorded in the East or Central 

 African forests. 



Whether the okapi is found anywhere to the west 

 or south of the course of the main Congo is as yet 



INTERNATIONAL MINERAL STATISTICS^ 



*T^ O the student of mining economics, part iv. of 

 ■'• the Mines Report is always a volume of special 

 interest. The publication of Colonial and foreign 

 statistics in the present form was due to the initiative 

 of the late Sir Herbert Le Neve Foster, to whom all 

 interested in mineral statistics owe a deep debt of 

 gratitude. Xo one, however, was more sensible than 

 Le Xeve Foster himself of the many shortcomings of 

 this publication, as the writer of the present review- 

 can personally testify, and it is a matter of great 

 regret that so little has yet been done to remedy some 

 of the more glaring of the defects of this publication. 

 It is not to be inferred that the removal of these 

 defects is a simple or an easy matter, or even that 

 it lies within the power of any one individual to 

 accomplish it, for it is highly probable that nothing 

 short of an international agreement amongst the great 

 mineral-producing countries of the world can effect 

 this end, even partially. Such a work as the present 



f tfe 



Si-- 



i 



1 



m 



M 



I : 



Riqhr Hind-leq 

 Outside view 



Right Hind-leg Left Hind-leg Riqr: fc^-e leq Riqht Fcre-iea Left Fc-e -lee 



front view. Inside & 3ack view Outside viev.. Trent view Beck view. 



Fig. 2. — Specimen of Okapi in the British Museum (Natural Historj') presented by Major Povvell-Cotton. From " A Monograph of the Okapi.' 



unrecorded, just as we have no record of the existence 

 of any anthropoid ape in the Trans-Congo regions. 

 So far as our imperfect information goes, the main 

 stream of the great Lualaba Congo acts as the limit 

 of distribution of some other forms of mammals, and 

 it may well be that at the time these creatures entered 

 tropical Africa the greater part of the Congo basin 

 was still a vast, shallow, fresh-water sea. A good 

 many of the creatures of the equatorial belt of Africa 

 extend from Mount Kenia and the East African and 

 \yest Tanganyika forests, right across Uganda and 

 the northern Congo basin to the Lower Niger, the 

 Gold Coast, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, but of this 

 .-eries so far no trace of the gorilla, the okapi, or the 

 Black Forest pig have been met with westwards of the 

 Lower Niger, or even of the Cameroons, though there 

 are Dutch records of the seventeenth century, as well 

 as existing native traditions, which point to the exist- 

 ence of some form of Black Forest pig in the Liberian 

 forests. 



H. H. Johnston. 

 NO. 2146, VOL. 85] 



has for its main object the comparison of the mineral 

 outputs of various nations, and of the conditions under 

 which this output is obtained, mainlv with reference 

 to the labour engaged in its production and the rela- 

 tive danger of the miner's occupation. It is a truism 

 that no real comparison is possible unless similar data 

 are compared, and it is here that the main difficulty- 

 lies, the same terms being used in different countries 

 with widely different meanings. 



To take a striking example, we find in the introduc- 

 tion a statement to the effect that the death-rate from 

 accidents in coal mines is as follows for the vear 

 1908 : — 



Per 1000 Persons employed. 



United Kingdom 1*32 France 0*95 



British Empire i"45 Germany 2'46 



Austria i-io United States 3-42 



Belgium 107 Foreign countries generally 2-34 



1 Home Office. Mines and Quarries : General Report and Statistics for 

 190S. By the Chief Inspector of Mines. Part iv., Colonial and Foreign 

 Statistics. Cd. 5284. (1910.) Price is. Zd. 



