April I, I 



NA TURE 



521 



Prof. Guido Cora has lately printed the address he de- 

 livered in November 1SS3 at the opening of the annual course of 

 geographical'studies in the University of Turin. This address, 

 dealing with the surface of the earth as the projjer suliject of 

 geography, has a special interest for the English public, who are 

 just now occupied with the question of geographical reform. 

 The author accordingly appeals more particularly to those 

 English men of science "who seem still to entertain grave 

 doubts whether geography really possesses a scientific and indi- 

 vidual character, and whether it is entitled to be taught even in 

 Universities." Amongst the subjects discussed are, the relations 

 of geography to the other sciences, geography an individual 

 science, separation of geology from geography, division of geo- 

 graphy in reference to its subject-matter and methods of investi- 

 gation, mathematical and physical geography, necessity of teach- 

 ing geography according to the most exact scientific and didactic 

 methods. 



At the last meeting of the Geographicnl Society of Paris, a 

 letter was read from Major Serpa Pinto, dated Zanzibar, De- 

 cember 10, describing his recent explorations in Eastern Equa- 

 torial Africa. He started from Mozambique, and followed the 

 coast, carefully examining the country as he proceeded, until he 

 reached Ibo. Here he organised a large expedition with 200 

 guards and 700 bearers, carrying provisions and wares, and 

 started for Lake Nyassa, uhxh he reached without difficulty. 

 On the journey he undertook a triangulation survey with level- 

 ling. Major Pinto was forced to return to the coast by himself 

 from Nyassa, on account of ill-health ; but M. Cardozo, his 

 second in command, continued the journey, and at the time of 

 writing should have been between Nyassa and Bangweolo. 

 Capt. Monteil, of the P'lench Marines, read a paper on the 

 French establishments in Senegal. 



.\ LENGTHY report from M. Thouar to the President of the 

 Argentine Republic, on the Pilcomayo River, has been pub- 

 lished. The object of his last exploration was to seek the 

 branch of the river which was mo-t navigable. Leaving Fort 

 F'otheringham on October 25, he reached, on November 12, the 

 rapids, the point which, from the other side, he reached with the 

 Bolivian Expedition in 1883. His conclusion is that it is 

 possible to go at any season of the year from the mouth at 

 Lambore to the mission of San Francisco de Solano in Bolivia, 

 at the very foot of the Andes, at a short distance from the prin- 

 cipal commercial centres of Southern Bolivia. The difficulties 

 caused by accumulations of trees, and the consequent formation 

 of sh.allows can, in his judgment, be overcome. The report 

 then goes on to describe the incidents of the journey, and the 

 hostility of the Toba Indians, which more than once threatened 

 the existence of the Expedition. M. Thouar left in the beginning 

 of February for Bolivia, crossing the Chaco between the iSth 

 and 19th parallels, still intent on his exploration of the 

 Pilcomayo from the Bolivian side. 



The current Ze'itschrift {&i. xxi. Heft l) of the Berlin Geo- 

 graphical Society has for its first contribution a paper of great 

 interest on the discovery and conquest of Chili, the portion pub- 

 lished in the present number dealing with the period between 

 the discovery of the Straits of Magellan and the death of Pedro 

 de Valdivia {1520-54). The writer, Herr Polakowsky, tells the 

 story of the stirring events of which Chili was the theatre at 

 this time with much fire and vigour. The second paper is also 

 devoted to South America. It is an account (accompanied by a 

 map) by Capt. Rohde, of the expedition of Gen. Victorica to 

 the Grand Chaco. The writer first gives some general informa- 

 tion abont the Chaco, its s'ze, natural divisions, productions, 

 flora .and fauna, so far as they are known; then he refers to 

 earlier expeditions, and this brings him to the plan of the cam- 

 paign under review, and to the events attending the march of 

 the column specially under the comm.and of General Victorica, 

 and of the other columns acting in conjunction with it. As part 

 of this comes the work on the Pilcomayo and Bernejo of Lieut. 

 Feilberg, of which much has already been heard in Europe. In 

 conclusion a list is given of the trees of the Chaco, their native 

 and botanical names, with a few words of description in each 

 case. A shorter paper (the last in the number) is a report on 

 the same expedition by the head of the Topographical Depart- 

 ment of the Argentine army. From a geographical and geo- 

 logical p .int of view this is the most valuable part of the 

 accounts of the campaign. It describes the geology, climate, 

 zoology, mineralogy, &c., of the Chaco. 



The Va-liandluns;en (Band xiii., No. 2) of the same Society 

 contains a paper, by Dr. Zintgraff, entitled "Impressions of 

 the Lower Congo." The writer was a volunteer with Dr. 

 Chavanne, who was despatched to map the lower part of the 

 river, and does not appear to be able to add much that is new 

 to our knowledge of this region. Dr. Ehrenreich writes on the 

 land and people in the Rio Doce in Brazil. This is a paper of 

 much interest, as it sketches the life and habits of a compara- 

 tively little-known people, from long and careful observation. 

 Herr Paul Reichard has a long report on his journeys in East- 

 ern Africa and the regions around the source of the Congo. 

 These journeys, of which much has been heard from time to 

 time, extended over about five years, and the present is a popu- 

 lar account of some of their leading features. 



The Mitthfilungen of the Vienna Geographical Society (Band 

 xxix. , No. 2) contains an account by Dr. Breitenhohner, the 

 Director of the Meteorological Station at Sonnblick, near Salz- 

 burg, wliich is the loftiest in the world, being more than twice 

 as high as the Ben Nevis Station. Herr Steinhauser continues 

 and concludes his review of the mathematical geography of the 

 last five years, which takes the form of a series of notes on 

 various books. Dr. Diener continues his contribution to the 

 geography of Central Syria, while further letters from the 

 Congo, from Dr. Lenz, are published. 



UNIVERSAL OR WORLD TIME^ 

 CONSIDERING the natural conservatism of mankind in the 

 ^^ matter of time-reckoning it may seem rather a bold thing 

 to propose such a radical change as is involved in the title of 

 my discourse. But in the course of the hour allotted to me this 

 evening, I hope to bring forward some arguments which may 

 serve to show that the proposal is not by any means so revolu- 

 tionary as might be imagined at the first blush. 



A great change in the habits of the civilised world has taken 

 place since the old days when the most rapid means of con- 

 veyance from place to place was the stage-coach, and minutes 

 were of little importance. Each town or village then naturally 

 kept its own time, which was regulated by the position of the sun 

 in the sky. Sufficient accuracy for the ordinary purposes of village 

 life could be obtained by means of the rather rude sun-dials which 

 are still to be seen on country churches, and which served to 

 keep the village clock in tolerable agreement with the sun. So 

 long as the members of a community can be considered as 

 stationary, the sun would naturally regulate, though in a rather 

 imperfect way, the hours of labour and of sleep and the times 

 for meals, which constitute the most important epochs in village 

 life. But the sun does not really hold a very despotic sway over 

 ordinary life, and his own movements are characterised by 

 sundry irregularities to which a well-ordered clock refuses to 

 conform. 



Without entering into detailed explanation of the so-called 

 "Equation of Time," it will be sufficient here to state that, 

 through the varying velocity of the earth in her orbit, and the 

 inclination of that orbit to the ecliptic, the time of apparent 

 noon as indicated by the sun is at certain times of the year fast 

 and at other times slow, as compared with 12 o'clock or noon 

 by the clock. [The clock is supposed to be an ideally perfect 

 clock going uniformly throughout the year, the uniformity of its 

 rate being tested by reference to the fixed stars.] In other 

 words, the solar day, or the interval from one noon to the next 

 by the sun, is at certain seasons of the year shorter than the 

 average, and at others longer, and thus it comes about that by 

 the accumulation of this error of going, the sun is at the 

 beginning of November more than 16 minutes fast, and by the 

 middle of February 144 minutes slow, having lost 31 minutes, or 

 more than half-an-hour, in the interval. In passing it may be men- 

 tioned as a result of this that the afternoons in November are 

 about half-an-hour shorter than the mornings, whilst in February 

 the mornings are half-an-hour shorter than the afternoons. In 

 view of the importance attached by some astronomers to the use 

 of exact local time in civil life, it would be interesting to know 

 how many villagers have remarked this circumstance. 



It is essential to bear these facts in mind when we have to con- 

 sider the extent to which local time regulates the affairs of life, and 

 the degree of sensitiveness of a community to a deviation of half- 

 an-hour or more in the standard reckoning of time. My own 



' Lecture by W. H. M. Christie, F.R.S., Astronomer-Roy.-il, 

 Royal Institution, March ig, 1886. 



