462 



NA TURE 



[March 13, 1884 



chetus Jn/iatus) from New Caledonia, presented by Mons. J. M. 

 Comely, C.M.Z.S. ; four Blue Titmice (/b^/w ca-rii/eus), British, 

 presented by Mr. Hanaeur ; a Barn Owl (Strixjlamtnea), British, 

 presented by Mrs. W. Gittens ; a Rhesus Monkey (Macacus 

 rhesus 6 ) from India, deposited ; a Bosman's Potto (Perodk/icus 

 potto) fi'om West Africa, purchased ; a Yellow-billed Duck (Anas 

 xanthorhyncha) from South Africa, received in exchange ; a 

 Bengalese Cat (Felts bengalensis) from India, received on ap- 

 proval; a Zebu {Bos indicus c5 ), a Collared Fruit Bat (Cyno- 

 nyctcris collaris), an Emu (Dromirus norjts-hollandia), bred in 

 the Gai'dens. 



GEOGRAPHICAL NOTES 

 Although the Chefoo Convention made with China in 1876 

 has never been ratified, we are now reaping various advantage; 

 from its provisions. With the object of exploring South-Westeru 

 China, and of watching the possibilities of the development of 

 trade in these regions, it was arranged that an English Consular 

 Agent was to reside at Chung-King in Sze-chuan on the upper 

 waters of the Yang-tse. The officers who have held this post 

 for the past six years have travelled widely through Yunnan, 

 •Sze-chuan, Kweichow, and other provinces, and have made most 

 valuable contributions to the geography of China by the reports 

 which have been published liy them. Thus we have Mr. Col- 

 borne Baber's explorations in South- Western China published 

 by the Royal Geographical Society, Mr. Parker's papers in the 

 Cliina Rei'itio, which we have already mticed, and now Mr. 

 Hosie has made two reports, which have recently been pub- 

 lished as Parliamentary Papers. The last of these deals with 

 a journey of nearly 2000 miles froni Chung-King to Cheng-tu, 

 the provincial capital of Sze-chuan, thence by Tali in Yunnan to 

 Yunnan-Fu, the capital of this province, returning to Chung- 

 King by another route. The traveller does not think much of 

 the European maps of these districts, for on p. 58 we find him 

 complaining that " the number of mistakes in these maps, 

 whether as regards boundary lines, names of places, &c. , not to 

 mention omissions, is truly alarming. As fairly accurate native 

 maps are procurable, the occurrence of such mistakes as the 

 above is astonishing." Mr. Hosie also gives some account of 

 the aboriginal tribes, « ho usually avoid the frequented routes, as 

 as they are afraid of being taken by the Chinese. He saw 

 several Lolos, and a Si-fan or "tame wild man," as he is called 

 by a kind of Hibernicism, as \^■ell as representatives of several 

 other frontier tribes. There can be little doubt that in a short 

 time, with these able and energetic English officers travelling far 

 and wide from Chung-King as a centre, the geography of the 

 south western corner of China will be as well known to us as 

 that of the districts adjoining the coast. 



At the opposite corner of the China Seas, another English 

 officer, Consul-General Leys of Borneo, is endeavouring to pro- 

 mote the commercial development of little-visited districts in 

 that wonderful island. He has recently visited the tracts watered 

 by three considerable rivers flowing into Brunei Bay near Labuan, 

 and hopes to get the Chinese merchants of the latter colony, as 

 well as of Singapore, to send trading parties up these rivers. 

 He further suggests the appointment of consular agents in 

 the interior of the dominions of the Sultan of Brunei : a step 

 which cannot fail largely to increase our knowledge of the 

 geography and resources of Borneo. 



The December number of Guido Cora's Cosmos, which com- 

 pletes the first series (1873-1883) of that useful publication, 

 contains the first part of Capt. C. F. Crema's journey to 

 Morocco in connection with the Italian Mission under Com- 

 mander Scovasso ill 1882. The text, which gives us a graphic 

 account of the progress of the mission from Tansjiers through 

 the maritime provinces southwards to the mouth of the Sebu in 

 the Atlantic Ocean, is richly illustrated with numerous woodcuts 

 from photographs nnd sketches taken by Crema himself. Some 

 of the heads in these illustrations, such as those of Scovasso, 

 the Kaid Raka, and the Arab Surgeon of Caria-ben-Auda, are 

 capital studies of character and ethnical types. Others vividly 

 reflect the salient aspects of the land, the architecture, and in- 

 dustries of its inhabitants. Conspicuous amongst these is the 

 fine north-west gate of Sheila near Rabat, which, with its two 

 hexagonal towers, is the grandest monument of Moorish archi- 

 tecture still surviving in Morocco. The paper is also accom- 



panied with a map to the scale of I : 750,000, which, being 

 iiased on an accurate survey of the route, forms a valuable 

 contribution to geographical exploration. It fills up many blank 

 spaces, and gives numerous rectifications of existing maps, even 

 in districts that have already been frequently visited by European 

 travellers. In the same issue Gustavo Bianchi gives an account 

 of his recent explorations in the Gurageh territory daring the 

 spring of the year 1880, accompanied by a useful map of the 

 Galla country to the south and east of Shoa, which, with the 

 exception of Cecchi and Chiarini's expedition in 1878, had 

 been visited by no traveller since the time of Major Harris and 

 d'Abbadie (1843-46). 



The Boletin de la Sociedid Geografica di Madrul for Decem- 

 ber 1S83 has a paper by D. Jose Gomez San Juan, on the 

 Spanish possessions in the Gulf of Guinea. The ol>ject of the 

 writer is to establish the exclusive right of Spain to the islands 

 of Annobon, Corisco, and the two Elobeis, as well as to the 

 portion of the opposite mainland stretching from Punta del 

 Campo to Punta Santa Clara on the right bank of the Gaboon. 

 The paper is alily written, and contains much interesting his- 

 torical and geographical information on the whole of the west 

 coast of Africa from Sierra Leone to the equator. 



The German and Austrian Alpine Club now consists of no 

 less than 100 sections. The last two sections formed were those 

 at Bonn, on the Rhine, and at Schladming Radstadt in the 

 Upper Enns Valley. 



The Stuttgart branch of the Berlin Centralverein fiir 

 Handelsgeographie contemplates the establishment of a Museum 

 for commercial geography at Stuttgart. 



There will be several special exliibitions at Munich on the 

 occasion of the fourth German Geographentag. The following 

 are planned : (l) new maps and books ; (2) curiosities of carto- 

 grapliy and geographical literature-; (3) Bavarian maps; (4) 

 maps, reliefs, and books relating to the Alps ; (5) maps, reliefs, 

 atlases, and other objects suitable for instruction in geography ; 

 (6) work done by pupils in geography, to illustrate the methods 

 of teaching. 



Letters have been received from Herr Junker and from the 

 Khartoum Consul, Herr Hansal, which, however, do not give 

 satisfactory details about the traveller's doings during the last two 

 years, nor about his present position. They are principally 

 short notes dating from December 1882, August and October 

 1883, -in which he refers to longer letters and reports, which have, 

 however, not yet come to hand. Nevertheless, these notes 

 prove that Junker was in good spirits and health in the Sennis 

 Country at the beginning of October last, and far from being dis- 

 heartened or disturbed by events in the Soudan, of which he 

 knew, was fully occupied with his travels and the drawing of his 

 maps. 



Dr. Finsch of Bremen has now published the "Anthropo- 

 logical Results" of his journey to the Pacific, and they form a 

 valuable addition to anthropologic il literature. The traveller 

 does not solely rely upon his own researches and observations, 

 but also upon his (according to Virchow) unexampled collection 

 of plaster casts from the faces of living men and women, natives 

 of the islands he visited. This collection consists of no less than 

 164 casts, and represents natives of sixty-one different islands; 

 beside Polynesiaus, Micronesians, and Melanesians, it also 

 contains Malays of the Indian Archipelago, for the sake of 

 comparison. Copies of the casts will be a welcome means of 

 instruction in anthropology, and can be obtained through Herr 

 Louis Castan at Berlin (Panopticum). 



An expedition to the North Pole is being prepared by Capt. 

 Fondacaro of the Italian navy. It is several centuries since an 

 expedition to the North Pole was despatched from Italy. 



THE SIX GATEWAYS OF KNOWLEDGE^ 

 II. 



THE sense of sight may be compared to the sense of sound in 

 this respect. I spoke of ihe sense of sound being caused by 

 rapid variations of pressure. I had better particularise and say 

 how rapid must be the alternations from greatest pressure to 

 least, and back to greatest, and how frequently must that period 

 ' An Address at tlie Midland Institute. Birmingham, October 3, 18S3, by 

 Prof. Sir William Tliomson, LL.D., F.R.S., president. Continued from p. 



