346 



NATURE 



[Feb. 28, 1878 



geologist, botanist, and archcEologist. Among other finds 

 it may be mentioned that near Golotizk, on the east coast 

 of the White Sea, he found a great ancient manufactory 

 of flint implements of the stone age, of the purest and 

 highest Scandinavian forms, which previously had been 

 seldom found east of the Baltic, and never on the coast of 

 the Arctic Ocean or the White Sea. The collections will 

 be divided between the State Museums of Russia, 

 Sweden, and Norway, all three countries affording 

 facilities for the conduct of the expedition. 



China. — In accordance with the terms of the Chefoo 

 Convention, Her Majesty's minister at Peking, about a 

 year ago, sent to Chung-king, in the Chinese province 

 of Szechuen, which lies at the junction of the River 

 Ho-tow with the Yang-tsze Kiang, Mr. E. Colborne 

 Baber, of her Majesty's Consular Service, who was 

 one of the interpreters attached to the Yiinnan mission, 

 and who, before proceeding on that bootless errand, 

 was at considerable pains to qualify himself for scientific 

 exploration. Mr. Baber started last July on an expedition 

 in the western districts of the province. But little was 

 heard of Mr. Baber's doings until the end of the year, 

 except from a private letter in which he described himself 

 as floating down the River Min, among low hills covered 

 with fir and insect wax trees, and in sight of (though at a 

 distance of sixty miles on the south-west) the holy moun- 

 tain of Omi, on the borders of Thibet. On December 27 

 the North China Herald, of Shanghai, published a portion 

 of another letter from Mr. Baber, in which he mentions 

 that, from the point just named, he made north-west and 

 from Ya-chow began to veer south. Passing Ning-yiian- 

 foo he went to Hwa-li-chow ; then turned east and crossed 

 the Yang-tsze into Yiinnan, not far from Tung-chwar. 

 Thence through the wildest and poorest country imagin- 

 able, the great slave-hunting ground from which the 

 Lolos carry off their Chinese bondsmen — a country of 

 shepherds, potatoes, poisonous honey, lonely downs, great 

 snowy mountains, silver mines, and almost incessant 

 rains, Mr, Baber tracked the course of the Upper Yang-tsze 

 to Ping-shan. No European, he says, has ever been in 

 that region before, not even the Jesuit surveyors, and the 

 course of the Yang-tsze, there called the Gold River (Kin- 

 sha Kiang), as laid down on their maps, is a bold assump- 

 tion and altogether incorrect. Mr, Baber adds that " a 

 line, drawn south-west from a mile or two above Ping- 

 shan, will indicate its general direction, but it winds 

 about among those grand gorges with the most haughty 

 contempt for the Jesuits' maps." 



- Mount Tongariro, — The celebrated burning moun- 

 tain of New Zealand, Tongariro, has at last been explored 

 by an Englishman, Mr, P. F. Connelly, The volcano is 

 regarded as tapu, or sacred, by the Maoris, who have 

 hitherto resisted all attempts to explore the mountain on 

 the part of the colonists. The volcano is situated nearly 

 in the centre of North Island, and though only 6,500 feet 

 high, is less accessible than either Mount Edgecumbe 

 or Ruapehu, both of which exceed 10,000 feet in height. 

 Mr. Connelly overcame all resistance, and by the help of 

 some chiefs more friendly than the rest, succeeded in 

 thoroughly exploring the crater, took a number of sketches 

 and photographs of the locality, and determined the 

 positions of the most important peaks, 



African Exploration. — The King of the Belgians 

 has sent to M, Quatrefages a telegram stating that two 

 other Belgian officers should proceed to Zanzibar within 

 a few days, to supply the places of the unfortunate MM. 

 Crespel and Maes, whose death we announced last week. 

 Telegraphic orders have been sent to the remaining 

 members of the expedition to continue their journey to 

 Tanganyika. The Paris Geographical Society, anxious 

 to acknowledge such a determined policy, have resolved 

 to take steps to accelerate the public subscription insti- 

 tuted on behalf of international African exploration. It 



has been resolved also to establish a local committee on 

 a very large scale ; not less than a hundred persons of 

 distinction will be selected, with power to add to their 

 number. 



Paris Geographical Society. — The distribution of 

 prizes will take place not in April, as usual, but at the 

 meeting to inaugurate the Society's hotel, now building. 

 It will be ready in the month of September or October 

 next. The gold medal will be awarded, as already re- 

 ported, to Mr. Stanley, but another gold medal of the 

 same value will be given to the veteran M. Vivien de 

 Saint Martin, the celebrated geographer, for the many 

 valuable works published by him during the last thirty 

 years, and principally " L'Annde Geographique." 



American Geographical Society. — We have re- 

 ceived two numbers of the Bulletin of this Society, con- 

 taining the proceedings of the meetings for the first half 

 of 1877. One number is devoted to the admirable sum- 

 mary of geographical work for 1876, which constituted 

 the address of the President, Chief Justice Daly, and to 

 which we alluded at the time. In the other number 

 (No. 4) the principal paper is on the volcanoes of the 

 U.S. Pacific coast, by Mr, S, F. Emmons. 



Maps of the Seat of War.— The Russo-Turkish 

 war has called forth a very large number of maps of the 

 Balkan peninsula. We learn that a Russian gentleman 

 has made a collection of maps of the seat of war, num- 

 bering more than 150, and will exhibit the collection at 

 Paris. The largest number of such maps has been pub- 

 lished in Germany, and the most detailed maps appear to 

 be those published in Finland. 



Arctic Exploration. — Mr. James Gordon Bennett 

 has petitioned the U.S. Congress to grant the American 

 register to the steamer Pandora for an Arctic expedition 

 under the command of American naval officers. 



SOCIAL ELECTRICAL NERVES^ 



THE efficient carrying out in a large city of any 

 extended system of telegraphic communication for 

 police, fire, and social purposes demands an intimate 

 acquaintance with existing systems, so as to insure the 

 establishment of only the most perfect organisation. In 

 an ordinary telegraphic communication between two or 

 more stations a line wire connects the terminal station 

 with the instruments in the circuit, and the distant end of 

 this wire is in connection with the earth, while the other 

 end, after connection through the instrument, passes to 

 one pole of a battery, the other pole of which is also in 

 connection with the earth. Thus the electrical circuit is 

 completed partly by the line wire and partly by the earth 

 wire. Such is an ordinary circuit. At times when tele- 

 graphic communication is required only for short dis- 

 tances, as in houses and buildings, a second wire takes 

 the place of the earth circuit. In the auto-kinetic system 

 for the introduction of fire, police, and social telegraphs 

 upon an extended scale an essential feature is the 

 employment of two parallel wires, laid over a city and 

 suburbs, starting from a central station to the various 

 district stations, and from thence ramifying in every 

 direction so as to embrace the most important areas 

 for the purposes required. Each of these two wires 

 has its special duty to perform. One is employed for 

 the purpose of starting the instrument, which may there- 

 fore be termed the "starting" wire. The other is used 

 for the transmission of the message, and may be termed 

 the "transmitting" wire. It is by this novel arrange- 

 ment that the auto-kinetic system enables any number of 

 speaking stations to be placed upon a circuit without 

 possibility of interference. Thus in each district of a 



» Continued from p. 306. 



