364 



NATURE 



\August 18, 1 88 1 



examples of Hydrous piceiis (the large Water-Beetle), Pelobius 

 hermanni, Notonccta glauca and Argyyoneta aquatka are at 

 present exhibited. 



GEOGRAPHICAL NOTES 

 The current number of the Geographical Society's Proceeding 

 gives the paper recently read by Mr. Whymper on some of the 

 geographical results of his expedition among the the Ecuadorian 

 Andes, with a diagram of his routes, while Mr. W. G. Lock 

 supplies a contribution on Iceland, which is published at a con- 

 venient season for tourists. Mr. Lock's paper refers chiefly to 

 the Askja volcano, the largest in the island, and is illustrated by 

 a map of the east coast of Iceland. In the "Geographical 

 Notes " a brief reference is made to this season s Arctic expedi- 

 tions, and we are informed that Mr. Leigh Smith has lately 

 sailed from Peterhead on his fifth Arctic expedition ; and on 

 reaching Franz-Josef Land he intends to construct a house and 

 refuge at Eira Harbour, and afterwards to get as far north as 

 possible. A very interesting account is given, from a letter 

 recently sent home by M. de Brazza, of the results of his explora- 

 tions and of the advantages of his route to Stanley Pool by the 

 Ogowe as compared with Mr. Stanley's along the north bank of 

 the Congo. After some news respecting Russian travellers an 

 account is given of Messrs. Soltau's and Steven: on's journey 

 from the Irawaddy to the Yangtsze, to which we recently re- 

 ferred. Under "Correspondence" is a letter from Major H. 

 G. Raverty on the Dara'h of Nur, which does not leave a 

 pleasant impression on the reader's mmd. 



Lord Aberdare has finally accepted the office of represen- 

 tative of the British Government at the International Congress 

 of Geographers at Venice, and he w ill of course act as chief 

 delegate of the Geographical Society. The India Office and 

 the Admiralty are sending maps, charts, &c. , to the Exhibition, 

 and the former will be represented by Lieut. -General Sir 11. 

 Thuillier, late Surveyor-General of India, and the latter by Sir 

 F. J. Evans, Hydrographer of the Navy. It is probable that 

 nothing further will be done to represent this country officially, 

 as the Treasury sternly decline to furnish funds. 



The Italian North-African explorers, Massari and Matteucci, 

 to whose journey we have repeatedly referred, instead of return- 

 ing by Tripoli, as was expected, struck across the Continent and 

 came out at the Gulf of Guinea. Only a few days ago they 

 arrived at Liverpool, and it is sad to record that, after so suc- 

 cessfully accomplishing an arduous work. Dr. Matteucci has 

 succumbed to African fever. He died on the morning of his 

 arrival in London last week ; his body has been conveyed to 

 his native city, Bologna. Matteucci was only twenty-nine years 

 of age. 



Letters from Zanzibar of the 1st ult. notify the arrival there 

 of Mr. Thomson, the African traveller, whose services have been 

 engaged by the Sultan to examine and report on the mineralogy 

 of the mainland. It is his Ilighness's wish that Mr. Thomson's 

 first surveys should be devoted to the discovery of coal mines, of 

 which several are said to exist not far from the coast. His 

 Highness writes that he intends sending the explorer shortly to 

 Makindarry, which is to be the centre of his future operations. 



Letters from the steamer Oscar Dickson have been received 

 at Gothenburg. The steamer, as our readers will remember, 

 was frozen in at the mouth of the Yenisei River in 72° lat. N., 

 and between 76° and 77° loug. E. The winter was successfully 

 passed, the difficulties the crew experienced were gi'cat, however. 

 The sun w.is below the horizon for seventy days, and the cold 

 rose to - 41° C. During March and April enormous masses of 

 snow fell, so that it covered the ice to a height of seven feet 

 above the ship's deck ; the thickness of the ice was seven and a 

 half feet. 



What might have been the climate during the Glacial Period 

 is the subject of an interesting paper pubHshed by Dr. Woeikoff 

 in the last it sue of the Zeilschiift of ihe Berlin Geographical 

 Society (vol. xvi. fasc. 3). It is well established now that for 

 the formation of glaciers, not only a sufficiently low temperature 

 is necessary, but also a sufficient supply of moisture in the atmo- 

 sphere. Thus, on the Woznesensky gold-mine, v\ hicli lies at a 

 height of 920 metres and has a mean temperature of -9° Celsius, 

 but a rather dry climate, we have no glaciers, nor in the 

 Verkhoyansk Mountains, where the mean temperature is as low 

 as - 1 5° '6, and the temperature of January is - 48° "6. To show 



these differences Dr. Woeikoff perpares a table of the tempera- 

 tures at the lowest ends of glaciers, and we see from his figures 

 that, w hilst in Western Norway, at the end of the Jostedal 

 glacier (400 metres liigh), the mean temperature is 4°'8 Cels., 

 5°-8 at the end of the Mont Blanc glaciers (1099 metres), 6°'8 at 

 the Karakorum glaciers in Tibet (3012 metres), and even 7° on 

 the western slope (212 metres) of the New Zealand highlands, 

 and 10° on the eastern slope (835 metres). In other countries, 

 as, for instance, onj the Mounkou Sardyk Mountain, in Eastern 

 Siberia (3270 metres), the mean temperature at the end of the 

 glaciers is as low as - lo°'2, and - 2° '4 in the Daghestan Moun- 

 tains of the Caucasus. Thus the difference of mean tempera- 

 tures at the lower ends of glaciers reaches as much as fully 20°. 

 Besides we see that, provided the quantity of rain and snow is 

 great, glaciers descend as low as 212 metres above the sea-level 

 in a country (New Zealand) wdiich has the latitude of Nice and Ihe 

 mean temperature of Vienna and Brussels, that is, higher than that 

 of Geneva, Odessa, and Astrakhan, whilst the average temperature 

 of \\ inter is higher there than that at Florence. Further, Dr. 

 Woeikoff discusses the rather neglected induence of large masses 

 of snow upon the temperature of a country during the summer, 

 and by means of very interesting calculations he shows how much 

 the temperature of summer in higher latitudes is below what it 

 ought to be in consequence of heat received from the sun, and 

 vice versA during the winter, these differences being due on the 

 one side to the refrigerating power of snow, and on the other 

 side to the heating power of sea-currents. In a following paper 

 he proposes to discnss the other causes which might have influ- 

 enced the climate of different parts of the earth during the 

 Glacial period. 



We notice in the Verhaiidlungen of the Berlin Geographical 

 Society (vol. viii. fascicule 5) a full report on the surveys which 

 were made in the Russian Empire, including Caucasus, Siberia, 

 Turkestan, and the Orenburg military district, during the year 

 1S80. This is translated from the ofiicial report published in 

 the organ of the Ministry of War. 



During the last session of the German Reichstag, Dr. Thile- 

 nius. Prof. Virchow, and Herr von Wedell Malchow presented 

 a petition to the Government requesting Ihe participation of 

 Germany in the exploration of the Polar regions proposed by 

 the late Karl Weyprecht in the interest of meteorology, geology, 

 aid other sciences. It is now announced that the German 

 Government w ill probably soon take steps in this direction, and 

 will first give its principal attention to securing the co-operation 

 of other nations. 



Heft viii. of Petermann's Mittheilungen begins with a paper 

 by Dr. Danckelman on the Temperature Conditions of the 

 Russian Empire, after Dr. Wild. Tlie other papers are on M. 

 Desire Charnay's Expedition in Central America, Dr. I. ^B. 

 Balfom-'s visit to Socotra, the Irawaddy above Bamo according 

 to the data collected by the Indian Pundit in i879-8o_(with a 

 map), and an article on the unfortunate Flatters Expedition by 

 Dr. Rohlfs. 



In the Bulletin of the Antwerp Geographical Society (tome vi. 

 2<^ fasc.) is a paper of much interest by Dr. Delgeur on the Geo- 

 graphical Know ledge of the Ancient Egj'ptians. 



Messrs. Longmans and Stanford have published an 

 enlarged edition of the Alpine Club Map of Switzerland. As it 

 is issued in a number of separate sheets, it ought to prove useful 

 to tourists. 



The Geographical Society of Lisbon has resolved to send an 

 exploring party into the Sierra d'Estrella for scientific investiga- 

 tion. The mountain chain in question has never been scientifi- 

 cally explored. 



In 1879 Mr. L. Loth, a Government surveyor in Dtitch 

 Guiana, made a survey of a considerable portion of the River 

 Saramaca, and his map of its course, on the scale of I : 400,000, 

 together with an account of his expedition, has lately been pub- 

 lished in the Transactions of the Amsterdam Geographical 

 Society. 



The Pcsterreichische MonatsschriftfUrden Orient of thi^s month 

 contains an interesting article on the new Conseil de Sante et 

 d'Hygiene publique en Egypte by Prof. v. Sigmund, a well- 

 known authority of the Medical High College of Vienna. 

 Amongst various other papers we may mention an essay on 

 Japanese paper manufacture by Dr. Rndel of Dresden, and an 

 article on the wines of Cyprus by Dr. Richter of Larnaca. 



