296 



NATURE 



\_yuly 24, 1879 



Society will approve. Though Dr. Rohlfs' resignation is 

 to be regretted, he cannot be blamed, and we trust the 

 expedition will be able to carry out its original pro- 

 gramme. 



The French Government will present to their Par- 

 liament a bill for taking preliminary steps in order to 

 establish a Soudan railway from Algiers to Senegal, vid 

 Timbuktu. An official commission has been appointed 

 to report on that subject. 



The Engineering and Mining Journal states : — At a 

 late meeting of the New York Academy of Sciences, Prof 

 Arnold Guyot, of Princeton College, presented before the 

 Geological Section a paper upon " The Topography of the 

 Catskills," containing the results of several years of study 

 of these mountains, and which he is about to publish. 

 From the contents of this interesting paper, it will appear, 

 that this region of country — in the midst of the oldest 

 settlements, and long celebrated as a summer resort — has 

 remained comparatively an unknown wilderness, even to 

 this day ; for Prof. Guyot, within the past few summers, 

 has actually discovered and named an extensive group of 

 mountains rising into peaks in some cases over 4,000 feet 

 high (the "Southern Catskills," or " Shandakeens"), 

 wliich are not laid down on any map, or described in any 

 gazetteer. These works of reference refer to this region 

 as "a hilly country," merely, and the fact that it contains 

 mountains higher than the true Catskills, is quite new to 

 science, and it has been reserved to Prof. Guyot to make 

 an interesting geographical discovery in the very heart of 

 the State of New York. For the paper in extenso our 

 readers are referred to the Proceedings of the Academy, 

 and for a fuller abstract, to the American NaUiralist for 

 July, to which we are indebted for the brief notice here 

 given. 



CAPT. James B. EADS, who is constructing the jetties 

 to deepen the channel at the mouth of the Mississippi 

 River, has written a letter to the New York Tribune, in 

 which he proposes to substitute for the contemplated ship 

 canal across the Isthmus of Darien a railway by which 

 the largest vessels may be conveyed across in twenty-four 

 hours. This project he claims to be entirely practicable, 

 and says it would cost considerably less than the canal, 

 and might be completed in three or four years. The 

 ship could be raised by a lock and the usual hydraulic 

 methods, and he suggests two methods that are prac- 

 ticable, and with precautions to prevent straining. He 

 recommends turn-tables instead of curves in the railway 

 where changes of direction are necessary. The car, or 

 cradle, to carry the ship should be built in sections, each 

 about 100 feet long, and each section supported by about 

 200 wheels, some of them driving wheels moved by 

 engines. The weight of the largest merchant steamers 

 and their cargoes would not exceed 10,000 tons. Such 

 a vessel Capt. Eads would place on five of these sections, 

 supported by 1,000 wheels bearing on eight or ten rails, 

 so that each wheel would support about 12 tons. He 

 thinks his plan entirely practicable, and urges it very 

 strongly. Indeed the scheme adopted at the recent con- 

 ference for an interoceanic canal meets with no favour in 

 America, and Mr. Troutwine thinks it will never be 

 finished, the difficulties are so great. Perhaps national, 

 as much as engineering reasons, influence American 

 opinion on the subject. 



Dr. H. a. a. Nicholls, who, we believe, is Surveyor- 

 General of Dominica, has addressed to the Colonies and 

 India some notes of considerable interest on that little- 

 known island and its boiling lake. In many parts, he 

 tells us, fine undulating uplands extend from the heads of 

 the valleys far into the interior, and one runs across the 

 broadest part of the island at an elevation of 800 feet 

 above the sea, containing many thousands of acres of 

 fine, well-watered land, with a virgin forest of lofty timber 

 trees. The chief mountain peak reaches a height of 



4,747 feet. Only a small portion of the island is culti- 

 vated, but of the rest, which is covered with the primeval 

 forest, large tracts are suited for the growing of coffee, 

 cocoa, spices, limes, and other tropical products. The 

 Boiling Lake, which is at an elevation of 2,425 feet above 

 the sea, has been visited on three occasions by Dr. 

 Nicholls, who, on his second visit, ascertained that the 

 temperature at the edge was 180° p., gradually increasing 

 towards the centre. The lake was first seen in recent 

 times by an exploring party organised and led by Mr. 

 Watts, a colonial magistrate, and Dr. Nicholls. They 

 thought they were its discoverers, but it has been found 

 that the volcano is mentioned in a very rare medical work 

 published in 1797. 



Prof. Georg Gerland concludes in the current num- 

 ber of Globus a long and elaborate examination into the 

 future of the American Indians. The conclusion he 

 comes to is that facts do not warrant the inference that 

 the Indians are dying out, nor that they have been dele- 

 teriously affected by contact with civilisation. 



In the course of this month a highly interesting geo- 

 graphical work will be published by Karl Graeser, of 

 Vienna, by order of the Austrian Minister for Education. 

 Its author is Prof Friedrich Umlauf, and its title " Wander- 

 ungen durch die oesterreichisch-ungarische Monarchic ; 

 landschaftliche Characterbilder in ihrer geographischen 

 und geschichtlichen Bedeutung." 



The second International Congress for Commercial 

 Geography will take place at Brussels from September 27 

 to October i next. It will be divided into five sections ; 

 the first will consider commercial routes and exploring 

 expeditions, the second natural and artificial products, the 

 third and fourth questions relating to emigration, colonisa- 

 tion, and instruction, while the fifth section will be de- 

 voted to the discussion of general questions. 



Herr Carl Boch, who has now finished his natural 

 history exploration of the western highlands of Sumatra, 

 is about to explore, on behalf of the Dutch Government, 

 the north-eastern part of Borneo — the district of Koetai. 

 There is a powerful and friendly Sultan at Koetai, who 

 has been requested by the Dutch Government to give all 

 possible assistance to Herr Boch. 



OxE of the newest of French geographical societies, 

 that of Montpellier, which has assumed the title of Soci^t^ 

 Languedocienne de Gdographie, now publishes a Bulletin 

 about every two months, which for size is imposing enough, 

 for the last number runs to 180 pages. It contains, among 

 other matter, observations on the creation of an inland 

 sea in the Eastern Sahara, and papers on Natal, the 

 Transvaal, and Zululand, and on the River Ogow^, as 

 well as a summary of M. Soleillet's account of his recent 

 attempt to reach Timbuktu, vid Sdgou. 



A NEW project for the construction of a system of 

 canals connecting the Caspian Sea with the Black Sea is 

 now being considered by the Russian Government, and 

 is discussed in a recent number of the Jotirnal of the 

 Russian Imperial Office for Public Works of Communi- 

 cation. The author of the new project is the engineer, 

 M. A. Daniloff He proposes to construct (i) a canal of 

 some 300 versts in length, from the River Terek to the 

 water-shedof the River ManytschjWhichconnects the Don 

 with the Caspian Sea, but the bed of which is generally 

 dry ; (2) a canal of about 320 versts, from the mouth of 

 the River Kalans (a tributary to the Manytsch), eastward 

 to the Wolga, near Astrachan ; (3) a canal from the same 

 spot, westward to the Don (about 350 versts) ; (4) a branch 

 from the eastward canal to the Serebriakowskaya Station 

 on the Caspian Sea ; (5) a branch from the westerly canal 

 to the Black Sea. Other Russian news states that the 

 Government has commanded the Khan of Khiva to 

 furnish 5,000 workmen for the works connected with 

 directing the Oxus River into the Caspian Sea. 



