=?8o 



NATURE 



[October 9, 1890 



but, on the whole, the conference quite fulfilled the expecta- 

 tions and the object of those who arranged it. 



The hall was even more crowded, with an audience even more 

 interested, on Tuesday morning, when Miss Menie Muriel Dowie 

 read her paper on a journey in the Eastern Carpathians. It is 

 the fashion in certain quarters to regard Europe as beyond the 

 pale of geography ; but to all but a very few of those who 

 listened to Miss Dowie's delightful paper, what she had to tell 

 about the Carpathians and their people was as new as Mr. 

 Stanley's account of his great African forest. 



Africa, of course, occupied a prominent place in the proceed- 

 ings of the Section, one whole day being devoted to it. Dr. 

 Kerr Cross, who has been stationed for many years in the Lake 

 Nyassa region, and is well qualified for scientific observation, 

 read a paper on the interesting plateau country lying between 

 Lakes Nyassa, Hikwa or Leopold, and Tanganyika. The 

 paper gave a most instructive picture of the extensive and varied 

 area with which Dr. Cross is familiar. The information he 

 gave about the little-known Lake Hikwa, east of the south end 

 of Tanganyika, was specially valuable, as it had only been seen 

 at a distance before by Mr. Joseph Thomson and a German 

 explorer. It is brackish, of a long curved shape, and lies in a 

 deep depression of the plateau, its basin being a parched-up 

 wilderness. Though there has been abundant rain on the plateau 

 around, for three years not a drop has fallen in the lake valley. 

 Mr. E. A. Maund described in some detail Matabeleland, where 

 he himself has resided for some years. Dr. R. A. Freeman's 

 account of his journeys in Ashanti and neighbouring regions was 

 of special novelty and value. The paper described a journey 

 through a tract of country in and to the north of Upper Guinea, 

 -comprising the territories of Fanti, Assin, Adansi, Ashanti, 

 Jaman, and Gri'iinsi. The tract extends from 5° N. to 10° N. , 

 and from 0° to 4° W. The first _f our countries are inhabited by 

 various branches of the great Otshwi family, and the remainder 

 by certain pagan aboriginal tribes, and by numbers of Wongara 

 or Mandingo immigrants. Journeying from Cape Coast, through 

 Ashanti to Bontuku, the capital of Jaman, the author crossed 

 three zones of country : (i) open country covered with low bush 

 about 30 miles broad ; (2) dense forest about 180 miles broad ; 

 (3) open park-like country which, alternating with grassy plains, 

 seems to occupy the greater part of Central and Eastern Africa. 

 On arrival at Kumassi, the capital of Ashanti, the author was 

 received by the king and principal chiefs with great ceremony, 

 the court of Kumassi retaining much of its former splendour. 

 The town of Kumassi is much dilapidated, but presents many 

 relics of great interest. Jaman is a kingdom situated to the 

 north-west of Ashanti, about 9300 square miles in extent ; its 

 capital, Bontuku, is a large town closely resembling in appear- 

 ance the towns of the Tawarek and Upper Niger. It is in- 

 habited almost exclusively by Mahommedans, and forms an 

 important slave depot, as do also the Gruinsi towns of Wa and 

 Bori. The commercial resources of the tract of country here 

 described are considerable ; over the whole of it gold is fairly 

 plentiful, and the forest abounds in rubber plants both in the 

 form of trees and vines. Hard woods are very plentiful, and are 

 of great value in Europe, notably the Odum and Pappao, both 

 of which trees reach a height of nearly 200 feet. The Kola nut 

 also, which grows abundantly in the forest, has a great and 

 increasing commercial value. The country is intersected by 

 several considerable rivers which might be easily rendered 

 navigable, and thus form great highways of trade. There are, 

 moreover, no special obstacles to the construction of railways, 

 and the district may thus be expected to form one of the great 

 commercial centres of the future. 



Mr. J. S. Keltic's paper on the Commercial Geography of 

 Africa dealt with the varied physical conditions of the con- 

 tinent, and endeavoured to indicate the bearings of these on its 

 industrial development and colonization. It was shown that the 

 vast tropical region, in which Nature is most exuberant, is of 

 insignificant commercial value compared with the countries along 

 the Mediterranean and the region south of the Zambesi. Central 

 Africa will only become of commercial value when, as in North 

 and South Africa, man is able actively to interfere ; the spon- 

 taneous animal and vegetable products of tropical countries can 

 never be of great commercial importance. 



Mr. A. Silva White followed with a paper showing in detail 

 the partition of Africa among the Powers of Europe. 



Two other papers of special African interest were read by 

 Mr, Cope Whitehouse and Dr. Schlichter. The former sought 



NO. 1093, VOL. 42] 



to prove that in the oldest Ptolemaic maps a depression (Lacus 

 Meridis) is shown, exactly corresponding to the Wadi Rayan 

 and Wadi Mullah. Dr. Schlichter, in an elaborate paper, dis- 

 cussed the whole subject of Ptolemy's knowledge of North-East 

 Africa, and sought to show that many of his positions exactly 

 corresponded with those of modern maps, obtained by quite 

 recent explorations. 



There were three papers connected with Asia. Mr. Theodore 

 Bent's paper on his recent explorations in North-Eastern Cilicia 

 was mainly of an archaeological character. Sir Frederic Gold- 

 smid read a paper on a railway through Southern Persia, as a 

 link of communication in the great railway route that will one 

 day connect England with India. Surveys and reports by recent 

 travellers have rendered it easy to supply this link, which may be 

 appropriately called the Baghdad-Bandar- Abbas section, or, more 

 minutely, the Baghdad- Shiraz and Shiraz- Bandar- Abbas sections. 

 As to the route from Bandar- Abbas to Karachi on the east, and 

 from Tripoli to Baghdad on the west, any doubts or difficulties 

 that present themselves are already ripe for discussion, and their 

 solution cannot be treated as dependent upon further travel and 

 research. It is proposed to carry the line from Baghdad through 

 Persian Arabistan, either by way of Dizful and Shustar, con- 

 tinuing along the recognized track from the latter place to 

 Bebehan ; or by an alternative route down the left bank of the 

 Tigris, andjyj'i Haweizah to Ah waz, whence Major Wells, R.E., 

 has furnished full details of route from his own experiences. 

 The same officer has made, moreover, very valuable suggestions 

 on the mode of reaching Shiraz from Bebehan. 



Mr. H. F. B. Lynch dealt with an allied subject in his paper 

 on new trade routes into Persia. In the course of the paper 

 Mr. Lynch, from his own personal knowledge, gave much in- 

 formation as to the physical geography of Persia, and especially 

 the region watered by the Karun River. 



South America was dealt with in two papers. Mr. J. W. 

 Wells described the physical geography of Brazil in its bearing 

 on the industrial development of the country, and M. A. 

 Thouar sent an abstract narrative of his journeys during the past 

 few years in the Argentine, Peru, and Bolivia. 



Mr. Coutts Trotter gave a most useful summary of exploration 

 in British New Guinea in recent years, dealing mainly with Sir 

 W. Macgregor's journey to the summit of the Owen Stanley 

 Range, already described in Nature. 



Dr. H. R. Mill gave a rhume of his investigations on the 

 vertical relief of the globe, details of which have been published 

 in the Scottish Geographical Magazine. He also gave an inter- 

 esting account of his observations on the methods of teaching 

 geography in Russia and of Russian geographical text-books. 



Mr. Henry T. Crook's paper on the present state of the 

 Ordnance Survey, and the paramount necessity for a thorough 

 revision, led to the Sectional Committee's requesting the 

 Council of the Association to move the Government to take steps 

 for the rapid completion of the Suivey, and for rendering the 

 Ordnance maps much more accessible for purchase by the 

 general public than they are at present. 



ANTHROPOLOGY AT THE BRITISH 

 ASSOCIATION. 



C\^ Thursday, September 4, after the President's address, a 

 ^^ paper by the Rev. F. O. Morris, on the doctrine of here- 

 ditism was read, and gave rise to a lively discussion, or rather a 

 chorus of condemnation of the views advanced by the author. 



In a paper by Mr. Horatio Hale, which forms the introduction 

 to the Report of the North- Western Tribes of Canada Com 

 mittee, attention was called to some of the chief peculiarities of 

 British Columbian ethnography, the great number of linguistic 

 stocks which are found in this comparatively small territory and 

 the singular manner in which they are distributed, especially the 

 surprising variety of stocks clustered along the coast as con- 

 trasted with the wide sweep of the languages of the interior. All 

 the languages of British Columbia have a peculiar phonology ; 

 their pronunciation is singularly harsh and indistinct ; and it 

 would appear that this is due mainly to climatic influences, for, 

 south of the Columbia River, the harsh utterance suddenly 

 ceases and gives place to softer sounds. 



A paper by Mr. J. W. Fawcett was read on the religion of 

 the Australian aborigines. The author stated that the Aus- 

 tralians believe in a Creator, in a future life, and in good and 



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