April 17, 1884] 



NA TURE 



579 



out the British Empire ; and to the work which her 

 (iliimni have done, and are doing, in science both pure 

 and apphed. 



It might be profitable also to dwell on her defects, 

 which she has in plenty, like other institutions guided 

 by human brains, and endued with her own share 

 of human inertia. But, as she has no want of candid 

 critics, and is by and by to be put into the refining 

 crucible, along with the other Scottish Universities, to 

 emerge, let us hope, purified and strengthened, we may 

 content ourselves with oftering her, and asking of readers 

 to join us therein, a hearty wish that she may prosper 

 during the next hundred years as she has done during the 

 present century. G. Chrystal 



THE COXGO^ 



ALTHOUGH claiming to be little more than the 

 record of a passing visit paid to the Lower Congo 

 Basin towards the end of the year 18S2, this is really a 

 work of permanent interest to the naturalist and ethno- 

 logist. The author, a young and ardent student of bio- 

 logy in its widest sense, here conveys his impressions of 



West African life and scenery m a series of graphic 

 pictures, which owe much of their freshness and vigour 

 to the circumstance that they are always drawn at first 

 hand from nature, and are often an exact reproduction of 

 jottings made with pen and brush in the midst of the 

 scenes described. His skill as a draughtsman he turns 

 to good account by illustrating the text with numerous 

 drawings of plants, animals, and human types, many of 

 which are absolute fac-similes executed by the Typo- 

 graphic Etching Compiny. 



But Mr. Johnston daes much more than merely de- 

 scribe in striking language the varied aspects of tropical 

 nature revealed to his wondering gaze as he ascended 

 from the low-lying marshy coastlands along the great 



' "TheRiver Congo, frjmiti Mouth to Bi51.5bu'," by H. H. j'hnst ,n, 

 F.Z S. (Sampson Low, 1884.) 



artery from terrace to terrace to the grassy steppes and 

 park-like uplands of the interior. Informed by the 

 quickening influences of the new philosophy now ac- 

 cepted by all intelligent students of nature, he compares 

 as he describes, carefully observes, and in apparently 

 trifling incidents endlessly recurring throughout long ages 

 he discovers the causes of ni'ghty revolutions in the 

 organic world In Stanley Pool and elsewhere on the 

 Congo he meets with numerous floating islands, tangled 

 masses of aquatic vegetation, firmly matted together by 

 their roots and fibres, and strong enough to bear the 





weight of a man (see Fig. i). These, like the huge snags 

 and trunks of trees borne along by the swift current, are 

 thickly peopled with all forms of animal and vegetable 

 life, which are thus carried a long way from their original 

 homes. Hence the inference that " on many rivers these 

 floating trees must serve as a great means for the diffu- 

 sion of species " (p. 283). So also in his recent work on 

 the " Indians of British Guiana," Mr. Im Thurn notices 

 the presence of turtles on the logs and stems swept down 

 the rivers of that region. 



