NA TURE 



[Man-h i8, i! 



for his topography of Eastern Africa ; and the bronze medal to 

 M. Mager for his Atlas Colonial, published by M. Bayle. 



Ethnologists will be glad to know that the February 

 number of the Bolletino of the Italian Geographical Society 

 contains a full descriptive account of the objects forwarded to 

 Europe by Romolo Gessi after his return to East Central Africa 

 in 1877. These objects have now been added to the rich col- 

 lection which he had already presented to the Geographical 

 Society, and which has found a permanent home in the Pre- 

 historic and Ethnographic Museum in Rome. Amongst the 

 objects specified by Dr. G. A. Colini, to whom the public is 

 indebted for this paper, mention is made of a stool from the 

 Bongo tribe (Upper White Nile) with feet made exactly like the 

 boots usually worn by European ladies. This object was locally 

 known as "the lady," and it is suggested that the native artist 

 took for his model the boots belonging to Miss Tinne. The 

 artistic talent of the Bongos is, however, better illustrated by 

 the figure of a man 069 metres high, wearing a girdle of cylin- 

 drical glass trinkets, and with upper lip and ears pierced for the 

 insertion of the iron rings commonly worn by this tribe. From 

 the Latuka people on the opposite or east side of the Nile come 

 ivory trumpets, wooden clubs with iron heads, curious knives 

 with slightly curved blade and wooden handle inlaid with iron 

 plaques, and a very fine helmet decorated with shells, red and 

 blue glass beads and a triangular brass plate in front. The 

 A.-Zandeh (Niam-Niam) and Mangbuttu (Monbuttu) objects are 

 distinguished by their number, variety, and richness, including 

 articles in wood, iron, and ivory : arm;, ornaments, utensils, and 

 musical instruments. The ivory carvings often display great 

 taste in the designs and technical skill "in the execution, fully 

 bearing out the accounts of Schweinfurth and other travellers 

 regarding the great artistic talent of these cannibal tribe-. 

 Archaeologists will be interested to know that amongst the 

 Mangbuttu objects is a splendid polished stone hatchet 0-25 

 metres long, with circular section, and terminating above in a 

 point, which must be classed with the prehistoric hematite 

 weapons supposed by the natives to have fallen from the 

 clouds. Nearly all the tribes of the Upper Nile Valley, and 

 even several of the equatorial lake region, such as the Wagamla 

 and Wanyoro, are represented in tliis very valuable ethnological 

 collection, probably the most complete yet brought together 

 from that quarter of the globe. 



At the meeting of the Paris Geographical Society of the 19th 

 ult. Vicomte de Brettes described the results of an exploration 

 made by him during last year in the southern Grand Chaco. 

 Since the commencement of the sixteenth century forty-three 

 expeditions have attempted to discover a communication between 

 the regions on the eastern slope of the Andes with those on tlie 

 left banks of the rivers Paraguay and Parana, These expeditions 

 have constantly followed the courses of the Pilcomayo and 

 Vermejo, and have ultimately demonstrated the impracticability 

 of these routes by reason of the numerous rapids, as well as of 

 the shalloivness of the water. The route so actively sought for 

 three centuries by the Argentine Republic, Bolivia, and P.ara- 

 guay, which would increase their trade tenfold, has never yet 

 been sought by land, and since the Spanish conquest the interior 

 of the southern Grand Chaco has remained wholly unknown. 

 M. de Brettes undertook this exploration, and entered the region 

 accompanied only by two Chenupis Indians. lie discovered 

 three rivers and an immense salt lake, on the banks of which he 

 marched 113 miles, when ague and fever compelled him to 

 return to Corrientes after a journey of 436 miles in a hitherto- 

 unexplored region. The country traversed by him is absolutely 

 flat, mimosa-trees and palms grow in abundance, and there aie 

 vast prairies and swamps, ijihabited by the Chenupis, Mocovis, 

 Velelos, and Matacos — all tribes still in an extremely bar- 

 barous state. The lecturer referred to various unpublished 

 documents respecting these tribe=, including a grainmar of the 

 Topii language, which is in the press. He also announced his 

 intention of returning to the Chaco to continue the work which 

 was arrested by illness. He appears to have received the most 

 cordial assistance from the Argentine authorities. 



On February 12 General Prjevalsky gave a lecture on his 

 fourth journey to Central Asia before a distinguished audience 

 at St. Petersburg. He entered into details on the sources of the 

 Yellow River, and described the environs of I.ob-nor, dwellinr 

 upon the peculiar features of the population of the surrounding 

 country. Then the lecturer passed to the orographic outlines of 

 the Alpine country, the numerous chains of which had been first 



traced by himself, and finally concluded his account by de- 

 scribing the valley of the River Tarim. The lecture was very 

 well illustrated. 



The March number of the Proceedings of the Royal Geo- 

 graphical Society has for its leading paper an account, by Col. 

 Stewart, of the Herat Valley and the Persian border, from the 

 Hari-rud to Sistan. It contains a large amount of interesting 

 information respecting a region which appears destined to play a 

 larger part in the public eye of England in the future than even 

 in the past. The discussion which followed adds much to the 

 paper, and this is especially the case with the remarks of Surgeon 

 Aitchison, the naturalist to the Afghan Delimitation Commis- 

 sion, who read an account of the botany of the region. Major 

 Greely's lecture on Arctic exploration with reference to Grinnell 

 Land is also published. The number also contains summaries 

 of two lectures, and the subsequent discussions, at the Exhibition 

 of Appliances used in Geographical Education, the lecturers being 

 Profs. Biyce and Moseley. 



The March number of the Scottish Geographical Magazine 

 commences with a paper by Col. .Stewart on a visit to Badghis 

 in 1S83, and to the Herat Valley in 1885. It also contains a 

 paper by Prof. James Geikie on mountains — their origin, 

 growth, and decay ; and a brief account of Dr. Boas's recent 

 journeys in Baffm Land. The geographical notes are very com- 

 prehensive ; amongst them is one, taken from the Geo- 

 grafhischer jFahrbiich, 1S85, containing statistics of the geo- 

 graphical societies of the world. It is somewhat humiliating to 

 find Great Britain and her colonies only third on the list in 

 point of members, and fifth in the number of societies. France 

 has 26 societies with 18,000 members ; Germany 24, with 9300 

 members ; while the British Empire has 5 societies, with 5300 

 members. The United Stdtes is even worse, for it has only 2 

 societies, with 1500 members. 



At the last meeting of the Geographical Society of Paris, M. 

 Hansen-Elangsted read a note on the disagreement between 

 geographers as to the highest peaks in Denmark. According to 

 the maps of the general staff' at Copenhagen, the highest hills 

 were in the south-west of the department of Aarhus. Himmel- 

 berg was long regarded as the principal eminence in Denmark ; 

 it is 147 metres in height. But in the forest of Ky, in the south 

 of the commune of the same name, there are several unnamed 

 heights, one of which is 163 metres high. Llimmelberg is now 

 only the third in height, and possibly it will have on examina- 

 tion to take even a lower place. Communications were read 

 from Gen. Annenkoff on the Transcaspian Railway and the 

 region it traverses, from M. Thouar on his exploration on the 

 Pilcomayo, and from M. Duveyrier on some Salhara longitudes. 



In the last number of the Transactions of the Halle Verein 

 fiir Erdkunde, Herr von Brandis describes some curious obser- 

 vations which he made during a year's residence in 1S61-62 

 on the slope of the active Java volcano Merapi, which has 

 lately been in eruption. From the crater two perfectly straight 

 white columns of steam (not smoke), of equal thickness above 

 and below, ascended. For some weeks the colour was of an 

 equal degree of whiteness throughout ; both were of equal 

 height, and from measurements made this varied from 320 to 450 

 metres. The upper ends were cut off sharply like the ends of 

 two tapers, and the thickness of one varied from 5 to 15 metres, 

 while the other was only about half this. The distance between 

 the two appeared to be about 20 metres. The colour of the 

 smaller of these pillars appeared to alter occasionally, but the 

 wind did not seem to have any effect in causing them to deflect 

 from the perpendicular. At first the observer thought there 

 must be perpetual calm at thi; altitude ; but this is not so, for 

 others have found that a south-east wind blows constantly there. 

 The effect of a current of air blowing from this direction would 

 have been readily perceptible to Herr von Brandis in the posi- 

 tion his residence occupied. This curious phenomenon was 

 observed in 1836 by Junghuhn, of Madgeburg, who ascended 

 the mountain, but the conditions of the summit do not appear 

 to have been sufficiently investigated to enable a positive 

 explanation of it to be made. 



It is stated that M. Rogozinski, who is at present in Cracow, 

 is preparing a dictionary and grammar of the idioms of the 

 Cameroon tribes. 



M. RoLLAND has been charged by the French Minister of 

 Public Instruction with a mission to Madagascar, to study its 

 mineralogy, botany, zoology, and anthropology. 



