August 8, 1878] 



NATURE 



379 



produce a work which comes up to their standard. Thus 

 Mr. Keith Johnston has dealt with Africa, and Mr. 

 Bates with Central and South America ; of the future 

 volumes, Europe will be edited by Prof. Ramsay, North 

 America by Dr. Hayden, the chief of the U. S. Geo- 

 logical Survey, Asia by Col. Yule, and Australasia by 

 Mr. A. R. Wallace. It must be admitted that no more 

 competent men could be found for the parts allotted to 

 them, and judging from the two volumes before us, the 

 "Compendium of Geography and Travel" ought to 

 take its place as a standard authority on geographical 

 knowledge and geographical exploration. 



The volume on Africa by Mr. Keith Johnston, who 

 himself will shortly lead an expedition to that much- 

 explored continent, contains a complete account of our 

 knowledge of the "dark continent," up to the date of 

 publication, including the recent discoveries of Mr. 

 Stanley. After a general introduction, each of the 

 principal regions of the continent, from the region of the 

 Atlas southwards, is treated separately, in all its aspects 

 — physical, geological, topographical, ethnological, and 

 biological. It is evident that Mr. Johnston has added 

 largely to the Gentian original ; indeed, his volume is 

 two or three times the size of the section of Hellwald's 

 work devoted to Africa. The result is a work which 

 gives a full and satisfactory summary of our present 

 knowledge of perhaps the most interesting continent of 

 the globe. It would, however, be a mistake to imagine 

 that the work is a dry geographical treatise ; it reads 

 more like a well-written narrative of travel, and besides 

 its value to all interested in geography as a standard 

 work of reference, it will be found genuinely interesting 

 reading. Mr. Johnston's Notes on the distribution of 

 rain in Africa, illustrated by a series of fourteen rain- 

 charts, are of distinct scientific value. Mr. Keane's 

 Appendix on the African Races is evidently the result of 

 long and conscientious research ; and while he possibly 

 makes too much of language /^r se as a test of race, he is 

 evidently master of his subject, and has gathered together 

 in a clear and well-arranged form a mass of information 

 of great ethnological value. 



To many, perhaps, the second volume, on Central and 

 South America, edited and to a considerable extent re- 

 cast by Mr. Bates, will contain more of novelty than 

 the first, treating, as it does, of a region less familiar to 

 the public than Africa.- Under the title of Central 

 America the second volume includes not only the smaller 

 states of the isthmus — Guatemala, Honduras, San Salva- 

 dor, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and British Honduras — but 

 also Mexico proper, the whole forming a region probably 

 upheaved by volcanic agency, and which seems to taper 

 away gradually from north to south. The area of this 

 large district of country exceeds more than five times that 

 of Spain, and would seem to be sufficiently distinct both 

 in a geographical and geological point of view from those 

 broad continental expanses known as North and South 

 America. The highlands of this district form a series of 

 wonderful lofty table-lands, intersected by detached hilly 

 portions and flanked by commanding volcanic peaks. 

 In some places these table-lands rise in terraces one over 

 the other. In others these will be suddenly interrupted 

 by deep intervening valleys of very various forms, some- 

 times mere chinks, at other times fissures of variable 



breadth and upwards of a thousand feet in depth between 

 whose steep rocky walls flow little streamlets. The great 

 mountain-chains culminate in such giant volcanic peaks 

 as Popocatepetl, which is nearly 18,000 feet in height. 



In addition to the chapters describing the physical and 

 natural features of this area, and a brief account of its 

 former wondrous greatness, there are chapters on the 

 present inhabitants, and copious information is given as 

 to each of the States. Especially would we note the 

 chapters relating to the population and government of 

 Mexico. 



The second division of Mr. Bates's volume is devoted 

 to the West Indian Islands. This large group of islands 

 lying east of Central and north of South America, includes 

 Cuba, Jamaica, Hayti, and the Lesser Antilles. The 

 condensation of this part is carried too far. These 

 islands awaken many memories of the past, not, indeed, 

 of a prehistoric past, like those that cling round Mexico, 

 but as it were of a modern past, with which some of ou 

 own island glory is connected, and it would have been well 

 had the editor not only edited, but extended, from the 

 English point of view, Hellwald's notices of Jamaica, 

 Cuba, and Hayti. In an appendix it is true there is a 

 most useful tabulated survey of the principal islands in 

 this group, which gives details of their population, a list 

 of their chief towns, and a short account of the products 

 and industries of each, but what we would have liked 

 would have been to have had all this incorporated in the 

 text, with a short account of the past greatness if any of 

 each of the larger islands. 



The third division treats of South America, a well- 

 defined continent, over some portions of which jour editor 

 has often wandered, a continent, the greatest in the world 

 for some of its natural wonders, a continent conspicuous for 

 its mighty mountain ranges, for the peculiar way in which 

 these run, which fact in combination with their great 

 height and their vast woody slopes, accounts for their giving 

 birth to so many gushing streamlets which, in their tiurx 

 uniting, form so many mighty rivers, by which the future 

 greatness of this part of the world will be achieved. The 

 carefully edited chapters of this section read — though not 

 exaggerated in tone — like so many pages from some tale 

 of fairyland. Passes over mountains upon the snow — ^just 

 on the very line of eternal whiteness with bright flowers and 

 brighter humming-birds, views from these lofty eminences 

 that no words can describe, views of nature in its vast- 

 ness and its greatness that seem to pain the human soul be- 

 cause it has to confess its inability to take them wholly in. 

 Then the vast steppes or llanos, then those rivers, such as 

 the Amazon and her tributaries, and lastly the volcanoes. 

 Amid all this nature the great towns and the varied 

 peoples of South America are, however, not overlooked, 

 and there are some good woodcuts illustrating the chief 

 features of both scattered through this portion of the 

 volume. 



The chapters also on the natural products and resources 

 of the various tribes and people are most interesting, and 

 the statistics seem to prove that the leaven of civilisation 

 is at last beginning to work in the huge human mass. 



The chapter on the ethnography and philology of the 

 American continent, by Mr. Keane, covers 100 pages, and 

 seems all but exhaustive ; it is accompanied by several 

 mapF, and, as in the case of Africa, by a long list in 



