Jan. i8, 1877] 



NATURE 



261 



repeated scenes such as I will now attempt to describe to 

 you. In this ideal picture I have endeavoured to depict 

 what I consider to have been the state of things. Here 

 we have the valley of the river some six or seven miles 

 broad. The streams reduced to streamlets meandering 

 through dried and barren sand-banks. Among them are 

 more elevated patches — islands, if we may use the term — 

 islands standing up from the general expanse of sand, and 

 in some cases actual islands in the sense that they were 

 surrounded by water. Here and there pools of water, 

 some almost stagnant, others fed by minute streamlets. 



Looking at the scene from a southern standpoint we 

 should see to the north the distant chalk range. Whilst 

 along the shore of the opposite bank of the valley we could 

 with some difficulty detect the various forms of vegeta- 

 tion, which we should see with greater clearness in the 

 more immediate foreground. In this valley a singular 

 stillness must have prevailed, as no trace of animal life 

 whatever has been found, except a feather and a few insect 

 wings blown in from the southern bank. 



Of the following at least we are pretty sure, and of 

 numerous others we can be almost sure, but there are 

 indications of very many besides, the relationships of 

 which are at present but imperfectly defined. 



Here we should see the graceful fan-palm and the feather 

 palms, adding softness to the view by their elegantly-curved 

 and drooping leaves, laurel and dwarfed oak, stately 

 beeches, clumps of feathery acacia, trelhsed and festooned 

 with smilax, the trailing aroid, with its large and glossy 

 foliage and an undergrowth of ^//;«d7Jrt; and of cypress in the 

 swampier ground, and variations in colour caused by the 

 foliage of cinnamon and fig, and the ground clothed with 

 ferns and sedges. On the barren sands of the distant 

 valley are growing clumps of giant and weird-looking 

 cactus. It is not difificult to picture to ourselves the view. 

 (See Fig. 2.) 



All this beauty is gone. We have nothing but these 

 records of what must have been a view of great loveli- 

 ness, which only the toil of the geologist can even faintly 

 reproduce. 



" The hills are shadows, and they flow 



From form to form, and nothing stands ; 

 They melt like mist, the solid lands, 

 Like clouds they shape themselves and go. 



" There rolls the deep where grew the tree. 

 O Earth, what changes hast thou seen ! 

 There where the long street roars, hath been 

 The stillness of the central sea." 



THE REPORT ON THE A USTRIAN " NO VARA " 

 EXPEDITION 



A FEW days ago Admiral v. Wiillerstorff Urbair, late 

 Commander-in-Chief of the Austrian Novara Explor- 

 ing Expedition, had an audience of the Emperor to present 

 to his Majesty the final report on the scientific results of 

 this great exploring cruise round the world. It has re- 

 quired about seventeen years' serious labour, and has 

 cost nearly 13,000/. sterling to complete this important 

 scientific work, embracing 18 vols. 4to. and 3 vols. 8vo., 

 and containing the anthropological, botanical, geological, 

 zoological, physico-nautical, statistico-commercial, medi- 

 cal, and descriptive parts. 



The narrative of the expedition, written by Dr. Karl 

 von Scherzer (an author also well known in England, and 

 at present attached to the Austro-Hungarian Embassy in 

 London), has rnec with such a success that five editions 

 have been published and more than 29,000 copies sold. 



The most interesting of the purely scientific publications 

 is the geological part, by Dr. Hochstetter, which gives 

 the most complete description of the geology of New 

 Zealand, the author having been the first naturalist who 

 thoroughly explored these antipodean islands, and he has 



carefully examined and described its gold and coal de- 

 posits. The statistico-commercial part, by Dr. Karl von 

 Scherzer, has become quite a standard book on the 

 Continent. 



The price of the complete series being very -high (391 

 florins, or nearly 40/. sterling), the Emperor has given 

 permission that a considerable number of copies of this 

 most valuable publication should be given away to pubhc 

 institutions and libraries in the empire, as well as in 

 foreign countries, and as the Novara has met with a 

 particularly kind reception in the British colonies, the 

 libraries of these have been considered first in the 

 list of recipients of this great national work, which is a 

 monument of scientific investigation. 



THE CYCLONE WAVE IN BENGAL 



A N interesting correspondence on this subject has ap- 

 •^^ peared in the Times during the last few days, evincing 

 generally on the part of the correspondents an earnest effort 

 to arouse the public mind to a sepse of the necessity or 

 something being done towards mitigating the calamitous 

 results of such occurrences in the future. The subject 

 being one that must sooner or later be faced, it is beside 

 the question to point to the destructive flooding of the 

 Thames as a proof that the Government of India does 

 not differ greatly in such matters from similar authorities 

 at home. 



As regards the meteorology of this important question, 

 three lines of inquiry stand prominently out as calling for 

 special and extended investigation. The first of these is 

 a thorough discussion of the storms of the Bay of Bengal, 

 or a continuation of the work under this head which has 

 been ably begun by Mr. Blanford and Mr. Willson. The 

 second line of inquiry is the cause or causes which 

 originate the cyclone wave and determine the course it 

 takes — a subject on which we cannot be said to have any 

 information at present, all that is or can be said being 

 little more than unsatisfactory conjectures. To carry out 

 these inquiries with the fulness and with the detail re- 

 quired to ensure a successful handling of the subject 

 additional stations must be established and the taking of 

 meteorological observations must be more extensively and 

 frequently done than is now the practice on board the 

 ships which navigate the Bay. 



The third line of inquiry is the systematic inauguration 

 of a meteorological survey of the Bay of Bengal and its 

 shores, with a more strict reference to its storms, by having 

 first-class meteorological stations established at Trinco- 

 malee, Madras, Vizagapatam, False Point, Saugor Island, 

 Chittagong, Akyab, Cape Negrais, the Andaman and the 

 Nicobar Islands, these stations having a full equipment of 

 instruments, including in each case a continuously regis- 

 tering barometer and anemometer. With these instru- 

 ments the law of the diurnal oscillation of the barometer 

 and of the changes in the direction and velocity of the 

 wind, including the variations with season, would become 

 known, and any deviation therefrom which may happen 

 to occur, could be telegraphed at once to the head office 

 at Calcutta. It may be regarded as absolutely certain, 

 that no long time would elapse before the nature of the 

 disturbing force, cyclonic or otherwise, revealed by the 

 anomalous readings of the barometer and anemometer 

 would come to be correctly interpreted ; and with the aid 

 of frequent telegrams from the whole circuit of stations, 

 so well interpreted that the superintendent at Calcutta 

 would have no difficulty in localising the cyclone, its 

 track and rate of progress would be so certainly known 

 that warning could be sent to the coasts threatened by it. 



This system of storm warnings must not be confounded 

 with that practised in Great Britain, in which no refined 

 system of observations is called into play, and in which 

 no accurate knowledge of mean periodic changes is re- 

 quired. What is chiefly required in this country is ^ 



