February 9, 1893] 



NATURE 



347 



Macg^egor says that the features of these people, which 

 are "remarkably good, indicate more character and 

 strength than those of the coast man, and the cheek 

 bones in many are rather broad and prominent. The 

 nose is generally of the Semitic type, with nostrils either 

 not arched or much more so than is usual in Papuans. 

 The chin and under jaw are stronger." They may be com- 

 pared with the Fly river people, also here figured (Fig. 3). 

 European names were bestowed on the chief physical 

 features of the country passed through by the expedition 

 •'of necessity," because of its "entire unacquaintance 

 with their orthography {sic) through limited intercourse 

 with the native inhabitants." This being in Dr. Mac- 

 gregor's case evidently a right and sufficient reason for 

 the nomenclature bestowed, how can Mr. Thomson with 

 justice animadvert, as he does on an earlier page, on the 

 fact that " the most important affluents [of the Kemp- 

 Welch river] have received [from Mr. Cuthbertson] 

 European appellations ? . . . . This disregard of the 

 native nomenclature is, in the interests of geography, 

 much to be regretted." However, we are pleased to 

 learn that the European names selected by the admini- 

 strator have been bestowed " upon the broadest national 

 sentiment, as being compatible with the principles which 

 prompted the bestowal of an English name on the range 

 by the officers of H.M.S. Rattlesnake." It is not improb- 

 able that the e.xplorer of the Kemp- Welch felt the same 

 necessity, and was actuated by the same broad sentiment. 

 Evidently the actor here sanctifies the act. We must, 

 however, take exception to the statement made by Mr. 

 Thomson that it was to the range that the name Mount 

 Owen Stanley was given. It is evident from observa- 

 tions in his book, that the author is aware of the discus- 

 sion that followed on the reading of Dr. Macgregor's 

 paper on his ascent of the mountain before the Royal 

 Geographical Society in London. On that occasion the 

 president of the society clearly pointed out that this 

 name was bestowed, as has been marked on all maps 

 for forty years, on \\i& peak, not on the range. Through- 

 out the book this imperious disregard for nomenclature is 

 exhibited. D Albertis' name of Snake Point in the 

 Fly river has without reason been changed to D'Albertis 

 Junction ; Annabel Harbour, close to Boundary Cape, 

 although marked on the official map of Sir Peter 

 Scratchley's voyage to the north-east coast, becomes 

 Douglas Harbour ; Fort Harbour, Clayton Inlet in 

 Porlock Bay, and the peaks named on the same occasion, 

 as well as the region delineated by the present writer at 

 the base of Mount Owen Stanley, are also all ignored on 

 the map attached to the volume now being considered. 

 Onefailstocomprehendwhatprinciple except personal feel- 

 ing the author has followed, on the one hand in his agreeing 

 to the change of the thoroughly established Mount Owen 

 Stanley to a new name, and on the other, in his restoring 

 to the Aird river, which had recently been re-christened 

 the Douglas, the name given to it by Captain Blackwood 

 half a century before. Not only are these arbitrary 

 changes an unwarrantable violation of the laws of 

 nomenclature, but they are in the remover an illegitimate 

 assertion of authority over previous fellow-explorers, 

 as well as an assumption of an honour to which he has 

 no title. 



Mr. Thomson has drawn on the face of his map two 

 large red circles, from purely arbitrary centres of the 

 equally arbitrary radius of 6^ 8' 56", which are tangential 

 somewhere in the valley of the Strickland river. It is 

 impossible to divine their purpose, e.xcept perhaps to 

 form a seasonable puzzle for his readers. 



The writer of this notice feels entitled to remark on the 

 following observation, occurring on page 109:— "Although 

 great care was exercised, the expedition was unable to 

 identify places on the Owen Stanley range, named and 

 described by Mr. Forbes. We are reluctantly constrained 

 to omit these names." In the Proceedings of the Royal 

 NO. I 215, VOL. 47] 



Geographical Society, which Mr. Thomson quietly 

 ignores, the writer has already pointed out that along the 

 route by which the administrator approached Mount 

 Owen Stanley, it would have been impossible to have 

 seen the features " named and described by Mr. Forbes." 

 Mr. Thomson, posing as a court of geographical appeal, 

 has graciously condescended to intimate that if these 

 names had been " judiciously and appropriately applied 

 to well-defined places," they " would have received full 

 recognition " from him. " It is also," he continues, "re- 

 gretable that in describing localities to which he assigns 

 positions, that explorer has omitted to supply the data 

 employed in their determination." To every unprejudiced 

 person it must be evident that the map published by the 

 writer could not have been plotted in England without 

 data, any more than that of Sir William Macgregor, who 

 has not supplied to the general public, so far as the writer 

 knows, the data by which his localities are fixed. It will be 

 time, however, to submit to Mr. Thomson these data, when 

 it is acknowledged that a back parlour critic of a country 

 in which he has never set foot is a competent judge of 

 either the judiciousness and appropriatenessof the names 

 applied, or the accuracy of the localities, or the data on 

 which they are based. 



Chapters VIII., IX., and X. are devoted to an account 

 of the administrator's ascent of the Fly river, and of his 

 visit westwards to the Anglo- Dutch boundary, and the 

 eleventh to his voyage along the north-east coast. D'Albertis 

 long ago gave us a very accurate account of his 400 mile 

 navigation of the Fly river. Sir William Macgregor 

 carried his flag right to the German territory, and added 

 several unknown rivers and new mountains to the map ; 

 but both in this region, as on the north-east coast, his 

 voyages, though they contributed many additional facts, 

 added little essentially new to the observations of his 

 predecessors, except his account of the piratical Tugere 

 tribe, living on our boundary line west of the Fly river, 

 of whom so much had been heard but so little known. 



This handsome volume, which presents us in a col- 

 lected form with the record of the important contributions, 

 geographical and biological, of a most energetic officer, 

 to our growing knowledge of New Guinea, would have 

 been more valuable and welcome, even in its restricted 

 range, but for the Ibias unduly exhibited throughout its 

 pages, the verbiose platitudes by which it is marred, and 

 the extreme looseness of its descriptions, as " Morna [an 

 island] is of the usual formation," " features of oriental 

 type," " the Papuan dialect," and such-like expressions, 

 which are numerous. In a long appendix we have a 

 resume of the results of the geological, botanical, and 

 some of the zoological collections made by Sir W. Mac- 

 gregor and others. Of these the chapter by Mr. Ethe- 

 ridge. Government Palaeontologist of New South Wales, 

 is specially valuable. Several important zoological groups, 

 however, such as the birds, are, curiously enough, entirely 

 disregarded. Vocabularies of many of the dialects 

 spoken in widely separated districts of the possession 

 are given, and are very valuable, and we sincerely hope 

 that no opportunity may be lost of amplifying them. 

 In fine, we regret to feel that this work will not yet 

 relieve those who desire to make themselves acquainted 

 with the accurate and complete history of British New 

 Guinea, Irom the labour of searching through the 

 original reports of the explorations, not of the adminis- 

 trator alone, but of the many other equally trustworthy 

 workers who have contributed to its records. 



Henry O. Forbes. 



NOTES. 

 Prof. R, Virchow will deliver the Croonian lecture before 

 the Royal Society on March 16, the subject to be the position 

 of pathology among the biological sciences. 



