134 



NATURE 



\yune 17, 1875 



ledge, and described the organisation of the new Society and 

 the task which lies before it. He showed what advantages a 

 Society so situated had over European societies for extending our 

 knowledge of Africa, and pointed out what yet remained to 

 be done ere the topography of North Africa could be considered 

 anything like completely known. We notice that the principal 

 geographical societies of Europe and Americ a have sent their 

 congratulations to Dr. Schweinfurth on the founding of this 

 Society ; England's name, however, is not mentioned. 



Mr. Macleay, who has organised the expedition to New 

 Guinea, our readers may remember, has already liberally endowed 

 Sydney University. The ship he has fitted out for exploring 

 New Guinea is a 400-ton man-of-war. His chief object is to 

 enrich his Natural History collection, and he intends to do 

 deep-sea dredging ; he takes also a steam launch for ascending 

 the rivers. There is one immente river, named the "Fly" River, 

 after H.M.S. Fly, about which nothing is known. Mr. Macleay 

 thinks that he will be able to ascend some 200 miles. 



M.'POLJAKOW, commissioned by the Russian Geographical 

 Society, undertook a journey last year into the region of the 

 Upper Volga, chiefly for zoological purposes, though he also 

 obtained some important geologico geographical results, an 

 account of which appears in Heft vi. of Petermann's Mittheil- 

 ttngen. From the observations which he made, Poljakow con- 

 cludes that the Scandinavian Finlandic glacier which once held 

 in its fetters the government of Olonez and the neighbouring 

 governments, must have stretched far into the basin of the Volga 

 and over the boundaries of the Waldai plateau ; and that by the 

 unequal levels of the lakes formed by the melting of the glacier, the 

 slender remains of which are seen in the existing lakes, undoubt- 

 edly a connection existed between the basin of the Volga and the 

 Arctic and Baltic seas. Judging from the fauna, Poljakow concludes 

 that the present upper course of the Volga must have been joined 

 to the middle and lower course at a recent period and in a man- 

 ner accidentally. The upper river has an entirely different and 

 indeed a more northern water fauna than the middle and lower 

 river. In this respect is the Scheksna to be considered the natural 

 upper part of the Volga, for it contains the very same fishes as that 

 river as far as Bjelosero. 



Dr. Forel, of Lausanne, has for several years been investi- 

 gating what are known as the Seiches of the Lake of Geneva. 

 Seiche is applied locally to certain oscillatory movements which 

 are occasionally seen to occur on the surface of the lake. The 

 phenomenon had been investigated by previous observers, among 

 others by Saussure and Vaucher, who attributed the pheno- 

 menon to variations in atmospheric pressure; in this, Forel, who 

 has most minutely investigated the phenomenon, agrees with 

 them. The phenomenon is found to occur on other Swiss lakes, 

 and Forel believes it will be found in all large bodies of water. 

 Indeed, he recognises in the Seiche probably the most con- 

 siderable and the grandest oscillatory movement which can 

 be studied on the surface of the globe. His investiga- 

 tions have led him to the conclusion that the Seiche on the 

 Swiss lakes is an oscillatory undulation {ottdnlaiion de balance- 

 ment), having a true rhythm, and that the phenomenon 

 is not occasional, but constant, though varying in degree. 

 The duration of a Seiche is a function of the length and depth of 

 the section of the lake along which it oscillates j this duration 

 increases directly with the length and inversely with the depth 

 of the lake. The instrument he has devised for the investigation 

 of the phenomenon he calls a plemyrametre ("tide-measurer"). 

 A detailed account of Forel's investigations will be found in two 

 papers in the Bull, de la Soc. vaud. des Sciences Naturelles, 

 tomes xil and xiii. Both papers have been republished sepa- 

 rately. 



Heft vi. ' of Petermann's Mittheihmgen contains a valuable 

 paper by Vice- Admiral B. v. WitUerstorf-Urbair on the Meteo- 

 rological Observations made by the recent Austro- Hungarian 

 Arctic Expedition, with an analysis of the ship's course. The 

 paper is accompanied by a chart showing the drift of the ice, the 

 course of the ship, ^ the depths of soundings, the direction of the 

 wind, and various other data. 



At the meeting of the Geographical Society on Monday, a 

 lecture was delivered by Admiral Sir Leopold M'Clintock on 

 "Arctic Sledge Travelling." After an account of the expedi- 

 tions of former Arctic travellers, from Parry downwards. Sir 

 Leopold gave a description of the appliances required for Arctic 

 travelling, and of the difficulties to be encountered. To sledging, 

 he said, we are indebted for almost all our Arctic experiences, 

 and to sledging we shall owe the principal share of whatever 

 work may be done by the brave men now going out. The 

 greatest bar to their progress would be ice too thin to sledge 

 over ; sledge-bearing ice or open water their equipments will 

 enable them to traverse. 



An opportunity will occur of sending letters for the Arctic 

 ships Alert and Discovery by the exploring yacht Pandora, which 

 will leave Portsmouth about the 23rd instant, Mr. Allen 

 Young, commanding that vessel, having consented to receive 

 letters, newspapers, &c., upon the chance of their being delivered 

 to or deposited for those ships. No articles of value should be 

 sent, and letters, &c., should be addressed to the General Post 

 Office, and marked " Per exploring yacht Pandora." 



A VERY full and interesting resume of the progress of geo- 

 graphical discovery and of the sciences connected with geography, 

 by M. Charles Maunoir, appears in the April number, just 

 issued, of the Bulletin of the French Geographical Society ; it is 

 illustrated by a series of small maps. The same number contains 

 the plan of a scientific journey into the interior of Indo-China, 

 by Dr. J. Harmand. 



New York telegrams of June 12 report a terrible earthquake 

 in the Cucuta Valley, Republic of New Grenada. Cucuta, it is 

 stated, has been entirely destroyed. Five other towns were 

 nearly destroyed, and 16,000 persons are reported lost, out of a 

 population of 35,000. 



A telegram dated Barcelona, June 10, states that some 

 shocks of earthquake had been felt there and in the neighbouring 

 villages. 



The U.S. Hydrographic Office,'of which Commodore R. H. 

 Wyman, U.S N., is superintendent, has commenced the sys- 

 tematic establishment of secondary meridians by telegraphic 

 exchange of time-signals. Lieut. -Commander F. M. Green, 

 U.S.N., is at present in charge of the work, and has during the 

 past winter made observations at Panama, Colon, Kingston, 

 Santiago di Cuba, and Havana. The starting-point used for 

 the determination of longitude has been the meridian of Key 

 West, Florida, established with great care by the U.S. Coast 

 Survey. In addition to longitude observations, the latitude of 

 each station has been determined with the zenith telescope. The 

 work will be continued next winter through the Windward 

 Islands to Guiana and Brazil. The liberal conduct of the com- 

 panies owning the cables has much facilitated the successful 

 prosecution of the work. 



We may see from the following extract from the New York 

 Nation how very closely our doings on this side of the water are 

 watched. The appointments referred to we have already an- 

 nounced in Nature, but the comments upon them by the 

 Nation indicate what we hope will be the method pursued by 

 England in the course of time, though we fear the course will 

 be a very long one. "Two recent appointments," the Nation 



