Qct. 4, 1883] 



NA TURE 



547 



met the steamers Nordtnskjbld, Obe, and Louise, the last 

 named of which the expedition went on board. Outside Yugor 

 Schar the Louise lost her propeller, and had to be taken in tow 

 t ■ Hammerfest by the Nordenskjold. On August 30 we landed 

 at Vardo. 



The leading paper in Heft ix. of Petermann's Geographische 

 MittheUungen accompanies a map of the two principal, almost 

 exclusive, nationalities of Bohemia, the Germans and the Czechs. 

 At the last census of Austria-Hungary, on December 31, 1SS0, 

 the Czechs in Bohemia amounted to 3,470,252, the Germans to 

 2,054,174; in all, 5,524,426. Unfortunately the column of 

 the census paper designed for the specifications of the nationality 

 of each inhabitant was headed " Uuigangssprache " (literally, 

 the language of ordinary intercourse), a word by no means best 

 calculated to educe in any case the national leaning of the person 

 filling it up. On comparing this last census with former ones, 

 it appears that the German and Czech elements maintain about 

 the same numerical relation to each other in Bohemia as they 

 had continued to do throughout the three previous decades. 

 Their present proportions are thirty-seven Germans to sixty-three 

 Czechs. The Czechs are in strongest force in the centre, while 

 the surrounding provinces, especially those of the north-west, 

 are chiefly occupied by the Germans. Local fluctu itions in the 

 relative proportions of the two nationalities occur principally in 

 the districts where the two are most mixed or where they border 

 0,1 each other in industrial, manufacturing, and mining, espe- 

 cially extensive coal-mining districts, and in places in which there 

 has been a rapid increase of population. In almost none of 

 these cases, however, has the former character of any quarter 

 been changed. It is observable that the Germans in predomin- 

 atingly Czech districts generally cohere in isolated communities, 

 whereas the Czechs in corresponding cases are disposed to 

 assimilate to the preponderating foreign element. In propor- 

 tions ranging as low as from one per cent, to one per thousand, 

 Germans are to be found everywhere throughout Bohemia, ex- 

 cept in the district of Blatna, where they muster only 43 against 

 52,522 Czechs. Czechs, again, are totally wanting in the Asch 

 and Plau districts, and number less than one-thousandth of the 

 population respectively of Gabel, Graslitz, Schluckenau, and 

 Tepl. Elsewhere in proportions ranging from one-thousandth 

 to one per cent, and upwards, they are diffused all over the 

 kingdom. Other nationalities than those of Germans and Czechs 

 are found in Bohemia in diminishingly small numbers: Poles 

 reaching 1303, Ruthenes 12S5, Italians 141, other nationalit es 

 falling short of the number of 100. It is further found that while 

 li hemians in foreign countries, chiefly in Western Austria and 

 Germany, amount to 490,565, the number of foreigners in Bohe- 

 mia is only 80,236, drawn, too, chiefly from Western Austria 

 and Germany. 



1 Ir. Emin Bey, continuing his tour through the Mudirie Rohl, 

 gives a description of the country he traversed between Biti and 

 Bun, more particularly the river Lau or Doghiirguru, as, along 

 w ith other names, it is variously called by the natives in various 

 parts of its course. Ruinbehk, the principal place of the 

 Mudirie Rohl, and the Agahr, and other Dinka tribes are next 

 described ; then the country passed in traversing the province of 

 Gohk as far as the Roah River, and back to Jalo ; the Lori 

 land and the Upper Jalo to Sajadihn, with the march back to 

 I. ad... 



In another article an interesting sketch is given regarding the 

 progress of the cartography of the peninsula of Corea, accom- 

 panying which is a map of the country bisei on the one pub- 

 lished in 1875 by the Ministry of War at Tokio, and embracing 

 all the latest tracings of the coast. 



The last volume (thirty-eighth) of the Memoirs of_ the Topo- 

 graphical Department of the Russian General Staff contains, 

 besides the usual reports on the geodetical and topographical 

 operations in Russia, the following memoirs :— On the measure- 

 ment of the base on a string during the trigonometrical survey 

 of Bulgaria, by Col. Lebedeff; on the measurements of the 

 pendulum made in India, by General Stebnitsky ; results of 

 levellings made during the years 1871 to 1877 along Russian 

 ra lways, by Col. Tillo. It results from these levellings, which 

 were made with a very great degree of accuracy, that the level 

 1 if the Baltic Sea at Dunamunde is 2 - io feet lower than at 

 Cronstadt. The possible error is ±0*91 feet. 



M. Lessar has written to the Russian Geographical Society 

 from Askabad, on June 16, that he has explored the Ongouz 

 River, which was known only in its upper paits. Even the 



Tekkes did not know the route to the east of Mirza-chile. The 

 journey was very difficult. The bed of the Ongouz bsing very 

 undefined, the expedition often lost its way. The kaks or cis- 

 terns were empty, as there was not a single strong rain in April. 

 Still M. Lessar reached Kavakhly, and thence proceeded to 

 Khiva, whence he returned to Askabad vid Mirza-chile. When 

 writing his letter he was ill, and unable to continue his journey. 



THE BRITISH ASSOCIA TION 



REPORTS 

 Report of the Committee, consisting of Lieu!. -Col. Godwin- 

 Austen, Dr. G. Hartlauh, Sir J. Hooker, Dr. Giinther, 

 Mr. Seebohm, and Mr. Selater (Secretary), appointed for the 

 purpose of investigating the Natural History of Soeolra and the 

 . Highlands of Arabia and Somali Land. — Prof. Bayley 

 Balfour's labours on the botanical collection made in Socotra are 

 nearly brought to a close, and the results will shortly be published 

 in a volume of the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. 

 The value and completeness of this memoir will be much in- 

 creased by the additional specimens subsequently obtained in 

 Socotra by Dr. Schweinfurth, which have been lent to Prof. 

 Balfour by the collector. The fresh- water shells collected by 

 Prof. Balfour have been described by Lieut.-Col. Godwin- 

 Austen in a paper read before the Zoological Society of London 

 in January last, and published in the first part of their Proceed- 

 ings for the present year. The Diatomacex have been examined 

 by Mr. Kilton of Norwich, and described in a paper which will 

 be read before the Zoological Society of Lond in during their 

 next session. 



Report of the Committee, consisting of Sir Joseph Hooker, 

 Dr. Giinther, Mr. Howard Saunders, and Mr. P. L. Selater 

 (Secretary), appointed for the purpose of Exploring Kili- 

 manjaro and the adjoining Mountains of Eastern Equatorial 

 Africa. — The Committee having b;en unsuccessful in obtaining 

 the services of a conductor for this expedition, nothing has been 

 done. 



Report of the Co'nmittee, consisting of Mr. John Cordeaux 

 (Secretary), Mr. J. .1. Harvic- Brown, Mr. P. M. C. 

 R'ermode, Prof. Newton, Mr. R. M. Barringion, and Mr. A. G. 

 More, reappointed at Southampton for the purpose of obtaining 

 (with the consent of the Master and Brethren of the Trinity 

 House, and the Commissioners of Northern and Irish Lights) 

 Observations on the Migrali m of Birds at lighthouses and Light- 

 ships, ani of reporting on the same. — The General Report of the 

 Committee, of which this is in fact an abstract, comprises the ob- 

 servations taken at lighthouses and light-vessels, and a few special 

 land stations, on the ea^t and west coasts of England and Scot- 

 land, the coasts of Ireland, Isle of Man, Channel Islands, 

 Orkney and Shetland Isles, the Hebrides, Faroes, Iceland, and 

 Heligoland, and one Baltic station — Stevns Fyr on Stevns 

 Klint, Zealand, for which the Committee is indebted to Prof. 

 Lutken of Copenhagen. Altogether 196 stations have been 

 supplied with schedules and printed instructions for registering 

 observations, and returns have been received from about 123 — 

 a result which is very satisfactory, showing as it does the general 

 interest taken in the work, and the ready cooperation given by 

 the lightkeepers in assisting the Committee. 



As in preceding years, the line of autumn migration has been 

 a broad stream from east to west, or from points south of east to 

 north of west, and covering the whole of the east coast. In 

 18S0, to judge from the returned schedules, a large proportion of 

 the immigrants came in at the more southern stations ; in 1881 

 they covered the whole of the east coast in tolerably equal pro- 

 portions ; but in 1882 the stations north of the Humber show a 

 marked preponderance of arrivals. Altogether a vast migration 

 took place this year upon our east coast, the heaviest waves 

 breaking upon the mouth of the Humber, Flamborough Head, 

 the Fame Islands, I-le of May at the entrance to the Firth of 

 Forth, and again, after missing a long extent of the Scotch coast, 

 at the Pentland Skerries. The Bell Rock also came in for a 

 share, although apparently a much smaller one than the Isle of 

 May. The easterly winds prevailed all along our east coasts, 

 generally strong to gales an( l 'he succession of south-easterly 

 and easterly gales in October, between the 8th and 23rd, occur- 

 ring as they did at the usual time of the principal migration, 

 brought vast numbers of land birds to our shores. From the 

 Faroes in the north to the extreme south of England this" is 

 found to have been the case. § 



