April 26, 1888] 



NATURE 



617 



GEOGRAPHICAL NOTES. 



The Founder's Medal of the Royal Geographical Society has 

 beenawarded to Mr. Clements R. Markham, C.B.,F.R.S.j on his 

 retirement, after twenty- five years' service, from the Honorary 

 Secretaryship of the Society, during which he has done so 

 much for the promotion of geography. The announcement of 

 Mr. Markham's retirement will be received with regret by all 

 who know the value of the work he has done, both in connection 

 with the Society and otherwise. But as he is still in his vigour 

 we may look for many more years' good work from him. The 

 Royal Medal has been awarded to Lieut. Wissmann, who has 

 twice crossed Africa, and done a great amount of excellent 

 exploring work in the region south of the Congo. The Murchtson 

 Grant has been awarded to Mr. James McCarthy, Super- 

 intendent of Surveys in Siam ; the Gill Premium to Mr. Charles 

 M. Doughty, for his explorations in Arabia ; and the Cuthbert 

 Peek Grant to Major Festing for his services as cartographer on 

 the Gambia River. As honorary corresponding members, have 

 been selected Dr. G. Radde, of Tiflis, Dr. H. Rink, of 

 Copenhagen, and Dr. Rein, Professor of Geography at Bonn 

 University. 



Two papers were read at Monday's meeting of the Royal 

 Geographical Society, one by the Rev. T. S. Lea, on the Island 

 of Fernando Noronha, and the other by Colonel Sir Marshall 

 Clarke, on Basuto Land. Mr. Lea accompanied Mr. H. N. 

 Ridley on his mission to Fernando Noronha last year. The 

 islands are 290 miles north-east of Pernambuco. The total length 

 of the whole group from north-east to south-west is about 6\ 

 geographical miles, and the maximum width of Fernando itself 

 l| mile. The noith-east cape of that island is very rugged and 

 precipitous, though of no great height. Boobie Island and Egg 

 Island are also raised masses of reef rock, which again appears 

 on the top of the basalt of Platform Island. Mount St. 

 Michael is a phonolite peak on which the weed invasion has 

 hardly found a footing, and the native plants still flourish. This 

 phonolite is a gray, close-grained columnar rock, and it seems to be 

 the key to the very interesting geology of the island. Platform 

 Island and Egg Island have a connection at low water with the 

 main island, a small mass of reef rock. Morro do Chapeo, or 

 the Hat Rock, seems to represent the residue of a larger block. 

 The north cape of the main island is stony, and there is no great 

 wealth of vegetation, though even here many of the endemics 

 may be found. There is a patch of blown sand at San Antonio 

 over which the Iponicea pes-capra: trails, and beyond that the 

 ground rises towards the basaltic height on which the town is 



built. The basalt is naore inclined to be nodular than columnar. 

 Descending from the town hills, the peak stands out clear against 

 the northern sky. It is a huge mass of columnar phonolite, with a 

 talus of debris around it, in shape not unlike a church with a tower. 

 About the centre of the plain rises a round mass of phonolite. 

 On the south coast, like bastions, stand two other phonolite 

 masses, with a ridge of basalt between them, steep on its seaward 

 side, but sloping gradually landwards. The islands of the south 

 coast, with the exception of the minute I. Jones, are also 

 phonolite. Tobacco Point is basaltic, and Morro Branco, in 

 Leao Bay, altered phonolite. There are raised beaches of reef 

 rock on Tobacco Point and to the east of Look-out Hill. Mr. 

 Lea hazards the following observations with regard to the structure 

 and possible history of the main island. Though undoubtedly 

 volcanic in origin, the date at which it was in any way active 

 must be exceedingly remote. No hot springs, or any trace of 

 them, occur ; no earthquakes or tidal waves are felt. No site of 

 a crater can be pointed to with certainty, and indeed any attempt 

 to reconstruct its pristine shape from the attenuated remains that 

 are left us must be undertaken with extreme diffidence. As the 

 island is surrounded by deep sea, and as nothing volcanic occurs, 

 as fr.r as he is aware, on the coast of Brazil in its neighbourhood, 

 he is inclined to think that it marks the site of an isolated vent. 

 The number of species of plants, &c., peculiar to the island 

 seems also to point to this, or at any rate to the extreme remote- 

 ness of any connection with other land. But there is at least one 

 thing which may throw some light on this matter. All round 

 the island, though interrupted in places, especially on the northern 

 coast, there is a sort of reef formation laid bare at low water, 

 and closely resembling the Recife of Pernambuco. At certain 

 points a very similar rock is found at considerable heights above 

 the sea. On Rat Island this reef attains no great elevation. It 

 rests upon a beach of rounded boulders near the landing, which 

 may be seen underlying it. Boobie Island and Egg Island also 

 have it, and there are traces of it at the summit of Platform 

 Island. On basalt in Cotton-tree Bay, close by Look-out Hill, 

 it occurs at a yet greater height, and again on Tobacco Point and 

 I. Jones it also occurs above high- water mark. Raised beaches, 

 therefore, seem only to exist on basalt, and in close connection 

 with a phonolite peak. Mr. Lea suggests that the phonolite 

 regions mark the sites of the ancient vetits of the volcano, the 

 phonolite itself being the plug which remained fixed during sub- 

 sequent eruptions of lava. The scoria is all but gone, only 

 remaining where the basalt covers it, but the harder phonolite 

 still remains in its place, and the raised beaches show that 

 beneath it lay the forces which manifested themselves in the last 

 expiring efforts of the volcano. The flora and fauna of the 

 group have already been very fully described by Mr. Ridley. 



Sir Marshall Clarke's paper described an official tour 

 he made in Basuto Land, last October, to visit the Baltokoa 

 tribe settled among the mountains. He traversed 400 miles of 

 country, a large proportion of which had never been visited by 

 Europeans. The highest point attained was 10,750 feet ; but 

 from thence, both north and south, distant heights appeared at 

 great elevations. 



ANTAGONISM.'' 



SOME months ago, shortly after I had resigned my office of 

 Judge of the High Court, I was expressing to a friend my 

 fear of the effect of having no compulsory occupation, when he 

 said, by way of consolation, "Never mind, 'for Satan finds 

 some mischief still for idle hands to do.' " You may possibly 

 in the course of this evening think he was right. I have 

 chosen a title for my lecture which may not fully convey 

 to your minds the scope of the views which I am going 

 to submit to you. I propose to adduce some arguments to 

 show that "antagonism," a word generally used to signify 

 something disagreeable, pervades all things; that it is not 

 the baneful thing which many consider it ; that it produces 

 at least quite as much good as evil ; but that, whatever be its 

 effect, my theory— call it, if you will, speculation— is that it is a 

 necessity of existence, and of the organism of the universe so far 

 as we understand it ; that motion and life cannot go on without 

 it ; that it is not a mere casual adjunct of Nature, but that 

 without it there would be no Nature, at all events as we conceive 



' Lecture delivered at the Royal Institution, en April ao, by the Right 

 Hon. Sir William R. Grove, F.K.S. 



