HYDROGRAPHY. 39 



the basin of the Zambesi, and discovered vast lakes and 

 waters which have proved to be those of the higher 

 Congo. Burton and Speke opened the way from the 

 AVest Coast, which Speke and Grant pursued into and 

 down the Nile, and Stanley down the course of the 

 middle and lower Congo ; while the vast extension of 

 Egyptian dominion has brought a huge slice of equa- 

 torial Africa within the limits of semi-civilisation. The 

 western side of Africa has been attacked at many points. 

 Alexander and Galton were among the first to make 

 known to us its western tropical regions immediately 

 to the north of the Cape Colony ; the Ogowe has been 

 explored; the Congo promises to become a centre of 

 trade, and the navigable portions of the Niger, the 

 Gambia, and the Senegal are familiarly known. 



The progress of discovery in Australia has been 

 as remarkable as that in Africa. The interior of this 

 great continent was absolutely unknown to us fifty 

 years ago, but is now crossed through its centre by the 

 electric telegraph, and no inconsiderable portion of it is 

 turned into sheep-farms. It is an interesting fact that 

 General Sabine, so long one of our most active officers, 

 and who is still with us, though, unfortunately his 

 health has for some time prevented him from attending 

 our meetings, was born on the very day that the first 

 settler landed in Australia. 



In hydrography our charts have been immensely 

 improved. The study of rivers and of the physical 

 geography of the sea may indeed almost be said to have 

 come into existence as a science during the last fifty 

 years, and in the words of Jansen, it was Maury ' who, 

 by his wind and current charts, his trade-wind, storm, 



