Feb. '27, 1879] 



NATURE 



395 



Creviux (see Nature, vol. xix. p. 298), Mritten on 

 Octooer 30 from the River Kou, an affluent of the Yary, 

 one of the lower tributaries of the Amazon. When he 

 last wTOte he had just crossed the crest of the Tumuc- 

 Hunac range. The Rouassir, an affluent of the Kou, was 

 at length reached, after many difficulties, on September 

 27, but proved to be navigable for less than 250 yards ; 

 its course then led through a marshy country, in which it 

 was divided into numerous streams, encumbered witk a 

 virgin vegetation, which had to be cut through. The 

 party only reached the confluence of the Kou on 

 December 2. Here Dr. Crevaux met some members of 

 the Roucouyenne tribe whom he had seen before, and 

 who were journeying towards the Oyapock River, in 

 Guiana. They took his letters and some of his collec- 

 tions, while a few of them undertook to remain with him 

 and guide him to the Yary, and thence to the Paru. 



At a recent meeting of the Geographical Society of 

 Lyons, Capt. Baudot read a report on M. Duponchel's 

 project of a railway from Algeria to the SenegaL He 

 characterised the scheme as a dream and an illusion, 

 and basing his remarks on his experiences gained during 

 a long sojourn in Algeria, he enumerated the difficulties 

 which rendered the project incapable of realisation in 

 our time. 



We have received the first part of a new edition of 

 Stieler's well-known Hand- Atlas, published by Perthes, 

 of Gotha. A large number of new maps are promised ; 

 one of these, North- West Africa, is contained in the first 

 part, and seems to us to be well up to date. It is only 

 four years since the last edition was published, but much 

 has happened during the interval to render a new one 

 necessary. 



A NEW Society of Geography has been established at 

 Nancy, the head town of French Lorraine, and the first 

 meeting took place on February 24. Another Society of 

 Geography for Normandy has also been found at 

 Rouen. 



At a recent meeting of the Berlin African Society, the 

 sum of 2,000 reichsmark was awarded to the well-known 

 traveller, Herr Ad. Krause, who is now in Northern 

 Africa, for a special tour to the Ahaggar mountain range. 

 A further sum of 20,000 mark will be distributed amongst 

 several other travellers shortly. In the next part of the 

 Society's Mittheilungen, interesting reports just come to 

 hand frcim Drs. Gerhard Rohlfs and Buchner, will be 

 published. 



It is stated that Major Butler, of the 9th Regiment, has 

 returned to India from Turkestan, after completing a 

 survey of nearly 6,000 miles of the countr)'. In the 

 course of his explorations he visited and held a confer- 

 ence with the Tekkd Turcoman chiefs at Kizil Arvad, 

 which was afterwards occupied by the Russians, but from 

 which it is said that General Lomakin has found it neces- 

 sary to beat a retreat. 



In the list of observations for fixing positions on the 

 Amazons, taken by Commander Selfridge, U.S.N., which 

 were recently published in the New York Herald, we 

 learn that by an accidental error the longitude of Para 

 was given as 48° 59' 15", instead of 48"^ 29' 15", and that 

 the latter will have to undergo a correction of 50" for the 

 difference between the meridians of the Rio de Janeiro 

 Observatory and Fort Villegagnon, the distance having 

 been erroneously calculated from the latter. 



Under the title of "L'Am^rique Equinoxiale " RJ. 

 Ed. Andre has just commenced, in the Tour du Afottde, 

 a series of admirably illustrated papers on the United 

 States of Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru, in which he 

 travelled on a scientific mission from the French Govern- 

 ment in 1875-6. 



NOTES 



Frederick Smith, F.L.S., assistant-keeper of the zoological 

 department of the British Museum, died on the i6th inst, at 

 the age of seventy-three. Mr. Sniith had devoted himself to 

 entomology, and was one of the first living authorities on 

 hymenopterous insects. 



The first soirie given at the Paris Obser\'ator7 by Admiral 

 Mouchez took place on February 21, and was very successful. 

 More than a thousand persons belonging to influential circles 

 visited the scientific exhibition of telephones, microphones, 

 electric pens, Feil's new specimens of artificial gems, &c. A 

 lecture was given by M. Wolf illustrating a new projection by 

 electric light ; the revolution of a radiometer could be observed 

 for the first time on a screen. Admiral Mouchez had secured 

 the services of the band of the Republican Guard, and a ball 

 terminated the proceedings. Science seems to be somewhat 

 more human and gay in Paris than in London ; we do not think 

 this does any harm to science, and is certainly a very efiectual 

 method of spreading an interest in it. 



Encouraging experiments were made at the British Museum 

 on Tuesday night in lighting up the reading-room by means of 

 the electric 1 ght. To-night further and more complete experi- 

 ments are to be made, and we trust that as the result a consider- 

 able extension of working-hours will be possible for the hundreds 

 who make the great room their daily workshop. A week or two 

 ago the enterprising authorities of the Dundee public library 

 made similar experiments with hopeful results. For such pmr- 

 poses there can be no question of the utility of the light, if suit- 

 able and safe arrangements could be made. The form of 

 light used at the Museum was the modification of the Jabloch- 

 kofi" candle introduced hy the Societe Generale d'Electricite. 

 By way of experiment the electric light has recently been 

 introduced into the Vienna Art Exhibition at the "Kiinstlerhaus" 

 and has enabled the directors to keep open their picture galleries 

 until late at night. The experiment was a perfect success, and 

 the new light will remain permanently established at the 

 galleries. 



The subjects of the Croonian Lectiures for this year are 

 announced. Lecture I. will be on the physical basis of ausculta- 

 tion, Lectm-e II. on tension, Lecture III. on the rate of the 

 heart's hypertrophy. All the lectures will be illustrated by 

 means of physical experiments and oxyhydrogen projection. 

 The lecturer is Dr. W. H. Stone. 



On Wednesday, March 5, Prof. Flower will give the first of 

 his nine lectures at the College of Surgeons, on the comparative 

 anatomy of man, in continuation of the course of last year, to be 

 continued on Mondays, W^ednesdays, and Fridays, at 4 o'clock, 

 to March 24. The following are the heads of Prof. Flower's 

 lectures : — Recapitulation of the best ascertained facts in connec- 

 tion with the subjects treated of in the last course, including the 

 physical characters and geographical distribution of the Aus- 

 tralian, Tasmanian, Melanesian, Papuan, Malay, and Polynesian 

 races, with fiurther illustrations from recent additions to the 

 Museum ; the inhabitants of the Andaman Islands, briefly 

 touched upon last year, will next be treated of in detail, as 

 typical examples of the Negrito race, and their osteological 

 characters and relations to other races demonstrated from a 

 series of skeletons and crania lately received ; the Mongolian 

 type and its various modifications, illustrated as far as ihe mate- 

 rials in the Museum permit ; ethnology of Eastern and Southern 

 Asia ; the Ainos, a non-Mongolian people of Northern Japan ; 

 the Eskimos. The lectures are free to all who are interested in 

 the subject. 



A NEW society has been created at Paris for aeronautics. It 

 L styled " Acidemie d' Ascensions meteorologiques," and a 



