May 12, 1887] 



NATURE 



41 



uruwimi of Stanley. Here, while detained for months 

 y a Monbuttu chief, A-Sanga, Dr. Junker suffered much 

 •cm want of proper food and other causes. On the 

 outh of the Bomokandi he met with the pygmy people 

 nown as Akka or Tikki-Tikki, whom he found clever 

 unters, leading a nomad life. He was glad to get back 

 Tangasi to recruit. Crossing the Welld in a north- 

 zest direction, he reached his new station at Semio's in 

 ieptember 1882. Setting out in December, he pushed 

 outhwards and westwards, touching the Well^ again at 

 wo different points, one of them being his farthest west 

 )oint on this river. 



The remainder of Dr. Junker's paper was occupied with 

 he troubles caused by the Mahdi insurrection to his friends 

 2min Pasha and Lupton Bey. These troubles prevented 

 unker himself from proceeding to Europe northwards, 

 ^e spent much time at Lado, where, under great dififi- 

 :ulties, he constructed a large and beautiful map of his 

 ixplorations. After being with Emin Pasha at Dufile and 

 »Vadelai, and being detained for some time in Unyoro 

 md Uganda, he at last persuaded King Mwanga to let 

 lim go. Crossing the Victoria Nyanza, he proceeded by 

 ine of the caravan routes to Zanzibar, and thence to 

 3airo,"and so to Europe, where he arrived only a few 

 A^eeks ago. Besides Dr. Junker's own paper, the only 

 ecords of his ten years' work are a few letters which 

 ippeared at intervals in Peterinami's Mitteilungen, so 

 ;hat his forthcoming work will abound with novelty. Its 

 scientific value will be unusually great. 



NOTES. 



The Royal Society's first soiree of the session was held last 

 night. More trouble than usual had been taken to bring inter- 

 esting things together, and the result was most satisfactory. We 

 ihall refer to some of the most striking objects next week. '^ 



We print this week the firstfruits of a new organization for 

 the furthering of astronomical research, which Mrs. Draper has 

 established at the Harvard Observatory in memory of her 

 husband. We do not think that a more noble memorial has 

 ever been suggested to perpetuate the memory of any man, and 

 certainly, if the fair promise of the opening work is kept up, 

 Draper's name will go down to long distant ages. In addition 

 to the first memoir, which We reprint, we have received from Prof. 

 Pickering several enlarged copies of the stellar photographs 

 already obtained. The scale of these photographs and their 

 perfection will be gathered from the illustration which we give, 

 and it does not seem too much to hope that within no very great 

 number of years we shall possess photographs of the different 

 orders of stars, with photographic spark comparisons, in which 

 it may be quite easy to trace the lines due to the absorption of 

 any particular element, and have, in fact, for stars of the various 

 classes an exact equivalent of Angstrom's spectre normal of the 

 sun with the metallic coincidences. The friends of the late 

 Henry Draper, and they are many in this country and on this 

 side of the Atlantic, will thank his widow for the noble memorial 

 she is erecting to his memory. 



The foundation-stone of the Imperial Institute will be laid by 

 the Queen on Monday, July 4. 



This afternoon the Croonian Lecture will be delivered before 

 the Royal Society by Prof. H. G. Seeley, F.R.S. The subject 

 is " Parieasaurus bombidens (Owen), and the Significance of its 

 Affinities to Amphibians, Reptiles, and Mammals." On Thurs- 

 day, May 26, the Bakerian Lecture will be delivered before the 

 Royal Society by Prof. J. J. Thomson, F.R.S. 



At the general monthly meeting of the Royal Institution on 

 Monday last, Prof Tyndall was elected Honorary Professor of 

 Natural Philosophy. Lord Rayleigh was elected Professor of 

 Natural Philosophy. 



The visitation of the Royal Observatory at Greenwich takes 

 place this year on June 4. 



Mr. Woods, the President of the Royal Institution of Civil 

 Engineers, and Miss Woods, have issued cards of invitation to a 

 conversazione to be held at the South Kensington Museum on 

 the 25th inst. 



The general meeting of the Institution of Mechanical 

 Engineers will be held on Monday evening, May 16, and Tues- 

 day afternoon, May 17, at 25 Great George Street, Westmllnter. 

 The President, Mr. Edward H. Carbutt, will deliver his 

 inaugural address on Monday evening. The following papers 

 will be read and discussed, as far as time permits : — "On the 

 Construction of Canadian Locomotives," by Mr. Francis R. 



F. Brown, Mechanical Superintendent of the Canadian Pacific 

 Railway ; " Experiments on the Distribution of Heat in a Sta- 

 tionary Steam-Engine," by Major Thomas English, R.E., of 

 the War Office ; and "On Irrigating Machinery on the Pacific 

 Coast, " by Mr, John Richards, of San Francisco. 



On Saturday evening next a lecture on "Savages" will be 

 delivered by Sir John Lubbock in the New Schools, Oxford. 



The Deutsche Seewarte at Hamburg has published a chart 

 showing the positions of the icebergs in the North Atlantic, 

 compiled from reports received up to the middle of April. The 

 chart is issued without charge to captains applying for it. As 

 early as the first half of March several icebergs were met with 

 south of 42° N. lat., and one even south of 41°. In drifting 

 southwards, the icebergs, as always, are found between the 

 meridians of 46° and 52" W. 



The fifth Bulletin of Miscellaneous Information, issued from 

 the Royal Gardens, Kew, gives an account of bowstring hemp. 

 This is not at present an article in commercial use, but Mr. J. 



G. Baker, the writer of the paper, thinks attention may well be 

 directed to the capabilities of numerpus species of Sansevieria 

 for producing fibre of great value. Plants of Sansevieria, of 

 which there are ten or twelve species, are very abundant on both 

 the east and west coasts of tropical Africa, which, indeed, may 

 be looked upon as the head-quarters of the genus. One well- 

 known species {S. zeylanica) is indigenous to Ceylon ; and this 

 and others are found along the Bay of Bengal, extending thence 

 to Java and to the coasts of China. The leaves of these plants 

 are more or less succulent, and abound in a very valuable fibre, 

 remarkable alike for fineness, elasticity, and for strengh. Mr. 

 Baker gives a description of those species which are now under 

 cultivation at Kew. 



The other day Dr. Robert W. Felkin, of Edinburgh, received 

 three letters from Emin Pasha. The latest of them is dated 

 Wadelai, October 26, 1886, and no more recent news from the 

 writer has reached this country. Before starting for the coast 

 from Uganda, Dr. Junker had collected a caravan and obtained 

 permissionYrora King M'Wanga to send it to Wadelai. " Besides 

 bringing me a good quantity of cloth," writes Emin Pasha, 

 ' ' there were many presents from yourself, as well as newspapers 

 from 1884 to i886, a few books, Graphics, and, what pleased me 

 most and will prove most valuable, a good many numbers of 

 Nature, so that at last I am permitted once more to see what 

 is taking place in the scientific world." Along with this letter 

 Dr. Felkin received a scientific paper which will be published 

 in the Scottish Geographical Magazine. It is an account of a 

 tour to the Albert Nyanza. 



It has been decided to remove the Royal Observatory of 

 Brussels to Uccle, about 3^^ miles to the south-west of its present 

 position. The new buildings were commenced in September 

 1883, and are now so far advanced that the transfer of the instru- 

 ments, &c., is arranged to take place next year. Observations 



