\ 



Juiy lo, 1879] 



NATURE 



249 



the explorers have learnt it, and have compiled a Swedish 

 Tschutschisk lexicon of over 300 words. There are three 

 Tschutschisk villages in the neighbourhood of the Vega. 

 The temperature in September seldom went down below 

 3 deg., and the lowest was S deg. (Centigrade). On the 

 darkest day of the year, December 21, the sun was above 

 the horizon. The letter -vr.s sent off froin the Vega by a 

 chief who was on a visit, and who lives near Anadyrsk. 

 The explorers expected to get free about July i, and to 

 reach Japan about August 15. 



Major Serpa Pinto, the Portuguese African explorer, 

 (if whose journey we gave some account last week, arrived 

 in London on Monday last. We understand that the 

 Royal Geographical Society do not contemplate holding 

 a special meeting in Major Pinto's honour, but that he 

 will be entertained by the Earl of Northbrook, President 

 of the Society, at a private reception on July 16, to which 

 the leading geographers have been invited. 



News has arrived at Lisbon that the Portuguese ex- 

 plorers Capello and Ivens, who started with Major Pinto, 

 were on the margin of the river Lucala on April 5, studying 

 the regions crossed by the river Cubango. They had ex- 

 plored the Cubango from its source to the eighth parallel. 



The steamer Jeanne tte, with the Arctic Exploring 

 expedition of the New York Herald, sailed on Tuesday 

 from San Francisco for the Arctic seas, vid Behring 

 Straits. The commander is Lieut. De Long, and among 

 the scientific staff is Mr. J. J. ColUns, who expects to 

 obtain important data in meteorology to the north of 

 Behring Straits. The detailed plans of the expedition 

 are purposely kept secret. 



In the current number of the CJnirch Missionary 

 Intelligencer -we find an interesting account, by the Rev. 

 C. T. Wilson, of his voyage across the Victoria Nyanza, 

 from Uganda to Kagei, in the course of which he was 

 able to make some important additions to our knowledge 

 of the geography of the large group of islands at the 

 north-western corner of the lake. He proved conclusively 

 that Mr. Stanley is in error in placing one large island 

 there, to which he gives the name of Sesse, as in reality 

 there are about 150 islands. Passing down the western 

 coast, Mr. Wilson came to the Kagera, or Kitangule 

 Rirer, the Alexandra Nile of Stanley. South of this, he 

 says, the scenery underwent a great change. Previously 

 the shore had been low, clothed with dense forest, and 

 often fringed with beds of papyrus, while to the south the 

 country consisted of high downs, ending in abrupt preci- 

 pices, 300 or 400 feet high, which sometimes descended 

 sheer down into the lake, and at others had a low strip of 

 alluvial land at their base, dotted with villages. The 

 geological formation also changed. North of the Kagera 

 the rocks were mostly a hard conglomerate, the matrix 

 being clay iron ore, in which quartzose pebbles were 

 imbedded, but on the south they were clay slate, with red 

 sandstone, the strata being inclined in a westerly direc- 

 tion at an angle of about 15°. Besides occasional de- 

 scriptions of the country and scenery, Mr. Wilson's 

 journal contains some interesting notes on natural history 

 and on the customs of the people. 



Mr Sanford Fleming, C.M.G., the engineer-in- 

 chie^has just issued his annual report in reference to 

 the Canadian Pacific Railway, illustrated by an interest- 

 ing map of the prairie region. Mr. Fleming has endea- 

 voured to collect all known information respecting the 

 country within the limits of the prairie region, and to 

 ^ake It easy of reference, the whole region has been sub- 

 ■aivided into blocks, bounded by each separate parallel of 

 atitude and longitude; the descriptions of scientific tra- 

 vellers and all available statements made on reliable 

 authority are placed side by side. Much still remains to 

 discovered respecting large tracts of countrv, and Mr 



Fleming suggests that the information should be obtained 

 during the present season by careful explorations of the 

 sections where our knowledge is deficient. On the map 

 an attempt has been made to indicate generally the cha- 

 racter of the soil, separating that of more or less value 

 from tracts which are comparatively worthless. 



In the fifteenth part of the great map of Switzerland 

 recently published at Berne, the following sheets will be 

 found useful by English tourists in the coming season : — 

 No. 263, Glarus ; 367, Wimmis; 429, St. Maria, and 

 429 bis, Stilfser Joch (giving the Swiss portion of the 

 Stelvio) ; and 526, Martigny, 529, Orsiferes, and 532, 

 Grand St. Bernard (giving the whole of the Swiss side of 

 the St. Bernard Pass). The present issue is in no respect 

 inferior to the earlier ones, which, we have frequently 

 pointed out, have been remarkable for their uniform ex- 

 cellence. When all the sheets are published, and this 

 will occur in about twelve years' time if the present rate 

 of issue is maintained, Switzerland will be able to boast 

 of a map of a far higher and more useful order than is 

 possessed by any other country in the world. 



M. DE Lesseps gave a long address at the last sitting 



of the Paris Geographical Society on the Panama Canal. 



He announced^ that he had entered into a contract with 



the Society d'Etudes for purchasing their rights so as to 



have the whole of the affair in his own hands. He stated 



that he had paid a deposit of 80,000/. to the Venezuelan 



Government, and his intention was to establish a public 



subscription of i6,oco,ooo/. He thought that sum should 



be sufficient with the sale of land conceded by the local 



government, and that the canal should be finished in less 



than eight years. In his speech M. de Lesseps narrated 



a circumstance quite unknown of the career of Napoleon 



III. When he was a prisoner in Ham he sent one of 



his friends to survey the canal by Nicaragua. He was so 



well satisfied with the results of the inspection that he 



wrote a petition to the Government asking to be liberated 



from his life confinement, in order to devote his activity 



to the establishment of this great work, pledging his word 



of honour that he should no more meddle with politics. 



The petition was left unanswered. He was ready to go 



to Nicaragua in order to execute his long-cherished 



scheme, when the Revolution of 1848 broke out and 



changed his plans. 



The New York Nation records with great satisfaction 

 the formal presentation to the U.S. Government of the 

 invaluable collection of Indian portraits and curiosities 

 made by the late George Catlin. This collection was, a 

 generation ago, one of the standing attractions of London, 

 was afterwards exhibited in Belgium, and there fell into 

 the hands of the late Joseph Harrison, Jun., of Phila- 

 delphia, who not only helped Mr. Catlin out of his 

 financial straits by the purchase, but intentionally pre- 

 served for his country this most remarkable record of the 

 American aborigines. His widow has now offered it to 

 the National Museum, where it will be duly displayed. 



M. DE Brazza, the explorer of the Ogow^, and gold 

 medallist of the French Geographical Society, has been 

 summoned to Rome, where he received from the Italian 

 Geographical Society another gold medal for his exploring 

 work. M. de Brazza is an Italian by birth, having become 

 French by naturalisation. 



The new Bulletin of the Antwerp Geographical Society 

 contains a geographical sketch of Afghanistan, accom- 

 panied by a map, by Lieut.-Col. Adan, who appears to be 

 the mainstay of both the Belgian societies. 



The telegraph line between Tientsin and Taku, in 

 Northern China, was completed on May 8. 



The Japanese Government intend to connect the Loo- 

 choo Islands with Japan by a submarine telegraph cable 

 to Kago?hima. 



