March 20, 1879] 



NATURE 



471 



has met with another disaster in the death, from dysentery, 

 of M. Wautier, at a place called Kekongen (? Ukonongo). 

 On the other hand, Major Pinto, the leader of the 

 Portuguese African expedition, telegraphs to Lisbon from 

 Pretoria, that he has virtually crossed Africa from the 

 west coast, after struggling with hunger, thirst, beasts, 

 natives, floods, drought. His route must have to some 

 extent almost coincided with that of Livingstone, and he 

 tells us he has saved all his papers, twenty geographical 

 charts, many topographical maps, several vols, of notes, 

 drawings, meteorological data, a diary of the exploration 

 of the Zambesi's seventy-two cataracts and rapids. He 

 says he has discovered the secret of the Cubango, by 

 which he seems to mean the river which, under various 

 names, was for a time taken by some to be the upper 

 course of the Congo. He lost many followers, and his 

 expedition seems in a small way to have been modelled 

 on that of Stanley's. 



The Times Roman correspondent writes that Menotti 

 Garibaldi and Achille Fazzari intend, if England does not 

 object, to sail in summer or autumn with 3,000 Italians 

 for the south coast of New Guinea, to establish a colony 

 there, and found a new city under the name of Italia. 

 The arrangements, it is said, are almost completed, the 

 30,000,000 francs required ready, and that applications to 

 join the party are more than can be granted. Part of the 

 equipment will be a telegraph cable, to place the colony 

 at once in communication with North Australia. Men of 

 all ranks and callings (except lawyers) are included in the 

 party, and among them several men of science. The 

 proposed colonists express the greatest good wiU towards 

 England, and it seems to us the trial would be worth 

 making. The Italians make better colonists than the 

 French, and Italians have done so much for the explora- 

 tion of New Guinea that it seems only fair that they 

 should be allowed to reap some benefit from the labours 

 of such men as D'Albertis and Beccari. 



At the last meeting of the Socidtd Commerciale de 

 Geographic at Paris Dr. Raffray gave some particulars 

 respecting his recent explorations in New Guinea, and 

 called attention to the fact that that country offered a vast 

 field for discover)' and study to the traveller, especially 

 from an ornithological and entomological point of view. 

 A report on the subject of a railway across the Desert of 

 Sahara was afterwards read, being the result of the 

 labours of a committee, of which M. Gazeau de Vauti- 

 bault is president. M. Deloncle also made a communica- 

 tion respecting the Volta region in West Africa, which 

 has been explored by M. Bonnat, and he announced that 

 two Lyons merchants had already determined to establish 

 business houses there. 



Mgr. Lavigerie, Archbishop of Algiers, hasfonvarded 

 to Les Missions Caiholiques the commencement of the 

 journal of the Algerian missionaries, recording the inci- 

 dents of their march towards the Nyanzas and Lake 

 Tanganjika. This portion of their journal stops at 

 Mukuduku in Ugogo on August 20, and the first instal- 

 ment of this is now published. It had been intended to 

 accompany it by a map of Equatorial Africa, sent home 

 by Pere Charmetant some time back, but it has been 

 thought better to delay the publication, in order that the 

 itinerary of the missionaries and the additional geogra- 

 phical information contained in their journal may be 

 included in it. 



It is stated In an ItaUan newspaper that the Duke of 

 Genoa will go on an exploring expedition, and will sail 

 from Venice in the Vittore Pisani at the end of this 

 tnonth. Thi programme of the route is to be Port Said, 

 Suez, Aden, Ceylon, and Singapore, where a longer so- 

 journ will be made. Afterwards the traveller will pro- 

 ceed to the Chinese and Japanese coasts ; in 1880 he will 

 visit Australia and direct his special attention to the ex- 

 ploration of New Guinea. On the return journey the 



Pisani v;\Vi cruise in the Persian Gulf. Capt. Sebastian 

 and Count Antonela have started on an exploring tour 

 through Africa. 



A POSTCARD was received at Berlin on February 15 

 from Dr. Gerhard Rohlffs, dated January 27 and posted 

 at Sokna, some 250 miles south of Tripolis, at the foot of 

 the Black Mountains, stating that he was in perfect health. 

 The postcard bears the stamp of Dr. Rohlffs' s desert 

 post, and a prettily-drawn postage-stamp with African 

 palm-leaves. 



To accompany the map of Zululand, noticed last week, 

 Mr. Stanford has published a few useful notes on the 

 physical features and population of the country. 



The yifrtw;/^//^ is fitting up in San Francisco harbour, 

 and will leave for polar exploration in the month of June. 

 Mr. Bennett, who is now in Europe, has been making 

 inquiry at Paris as to the best means of constructing and 

 inflating balloons in the Arctic regions. It is thus hkely 

 that aerial navigation will play a part in this new effort to 

 solve the mystery of the north. 



EDISON'S TELEPHONE 



/^UR readers may remember a few months ago we 

 ^^ stated, in an article on the Carbon Telephone 

 (Nature, vol. xix. p. 56), that Mr. Edison had devised 

 an entirely new form of receiver, for use with his tele- 

 phone, which delivered the voice as loudly as if the words 

 were spoken at the distant end. This receiver has now 

 arrived in England in charge of Mr. Edison's nephew, 

 and to judge from its performances last Friday, it is 

 likely to accomplish all that Edison has stated concern- 

 ing it. 



The principle of this new receiver is that of the electro- 

 motograph, and to those of our readers who may not be 

 acquainted with this instrument the following extract 

 from a recently published lecture, on Edison's inventions, 

 by Prof. Barrett will explain what the electro-moto- 

 graph is.^ 



" Mere ingenuity in contriving machines does not add 

 to the sum of human knowledge, and if Mr. Edison were 

 merely a clever inventor and nothing more, I should feel 

 less interest in the man. It is, however, a noticeable fea- 

 ture of Mr. Edison's inventions that they, in general, 

 contain some new principle, some original observation in 

 experimental science, which entitles him to the rank of a 

 discoverer. Such is the character of the next invention 

 we must consider, the so-called electro-motograph. This 

 is an entirely new method of receiving telegraphic 

 messages, discovered by Edison in 1874. As every one is 

 aware, the ordinary system of telegraphy depends upon 

 the production of magnetism by means of an electric 

 current, the current either attracting and releasing a 

 movable piece of iron, or deflecting a magnetic needle to 

 the right or to the left. By the to-and-fro movements of 

 the iron or the needle the conventional signals are pro- 

 duced which are employed in telegraphy. Now Mr. Edi- 

 son made the curious and important discovery that 

 messages could be received by the well-known Morse 

 recorder without the use of any magnet. This, to a tele- 

 graphist, would be like attempting to perform the play of 

 " Hamlet," while omitting the part of Hamlet himself. 

 In fact, all that is necessary in this simple telegraphic 

 instrument is a band of moistened paper dra\vn beneath 

 a metal style. The accident of holding his finger against 

 the style of a Morse instrument led Mr. Edison to notice 

 that »vhen an electric current passed from the paper to 

 the point resting upon it the friction of the moving paper 

 was lessened. Hence, if the paper were drawn with a 

 uniform force it would slip more easily beneath the point 

 the moment the current passed. The slipping of the 



' " Science Lectures for the People," No. 5, Tenth Series. (Manchester, 

 Hey wood.) 



