290 



NA rURE 



\A7ig. 8, 1872 



through Lake Kamolondo Bartle Frere's great river, and 



that afterwards farther down it takes in Young's great 

 stream through Lake Lincoln, I ventured to think 

 that 1 was on the right traclc. Two great rivers arise 

 somewhere on the western end of the waterslied, and flow 

 north — to Egypt (?). Two other lar^e rivers rise in the 

 ramc quarter and flow south, as the Zamljesi, or Liambai, 

 and the Kafue, into Innsr Ethiopia. Yet I speak with 

 diffidence, for I have no affinity with anuntravelled would- 

 be geographer who used to swear to the fancies he collected 

 from slaves till he became blue in the face. I knoiv about 

 six hundred miles of the watershed pretty fairly. I turn 

 to the seventh hundred miles with pleasure and hope. 1 

 want no companion now, though discovery means hard 

 work. .Some can make what they call theoretical dis- 

 coveries by dreaming. 1 should like to offer a prize for 

 an exijlanation of the correlation of the structure and 

 economy of the watershed with the structure and economy 

 of the great lacustrine rivers in the production of the 

 phenomena of the Nile. The prize cannot be undervalued 

 by competitors even who have only dreamed of what has 

 given me very great trouble, though they may have hit on 

 .the division of labour in dreaming, and each discovered 

 one or two himdred miles. In the actual discovery so far, 

 I went two years and six months without once tasting tea, 

 coffee, or sugar ; and, except at Ujiji, have fed on buffa- 

 loes, rhinoceros, elephants, hippopotami, and cattle of that 

 sort ; and have come to believe that English roast beef 

 and plum pudding must be the real genuine theobroma. 

 the food of the gods, and I offer to all successful competi- 

 tors a glorious feast of beefsteaks and stout. No compe- 

 tition will be allowed after I have published my own 

 explanation, on pain of immediate execution without 

 benefit of clergy ! I send home my journal by Mr. .Stan- 

 ley, scaled, to my daughter Agnes. It is one of Letts' 

 large folio diaries, and is full except a few (five) pages 

 reserved for altitudes which I cannot at present copy. It 

 contains a few private memoranda for my family alone, 

 and I adopt this course in order to secure it from risk in 

 my concluding trip." 



NOTES 



We are in a storm of Congresses. .Scarcely has the British 

 Archreological Institute finished its work at Southampton before 

 the British Archa;ological Association, the Iron and Steel Insti- 

 tute, and the British Medical Association have thrown Wolver- 

 hampton, Glasgow, and Birmingham respectively into unwonted 

 excitement ; while by this time next week the British Association 

 will be in full swing at Brighton. With regard to this latter 

 Congress, we are happy to announce that admirable arrangements 

 for the reception of visitors are being made, and that a large and 

 satisfactory meeting, under the presidency of Dr. Carpenter, may 

 be anticipated. 



At the moment of going to press we hear that a M. Delaun.ay, 

 "iliieclor of the Astronomical Observatory" {sic), has been 

 drowned by the upsetting of a boat at Cherbourg. We sincerely 

 trust thifdocs not refer (o the distinguished director of the Ob- 

 servatory of Pari';. Bui the telegram is ominous. 



The French Association fur the Advancement of Science will 

 hold ils first annual meeting at Bordeaux, from the 5th to the 

 1 2th of September. The Administrative C(juncil, cons's'ing of 

 M.\I. Claude Bernard, Broca, Delaunay, A. d'Eichthal, Da 

 ijiiatrelliges, Wurt/., Cornu, secretary of the Association, Masson, 

 treasurer, and Gariel, secretary of the Council, have issued a 

 circular inviiing many of our most eminent men of science to be 

 present; and, as the new French society is based upon an old 

 English one, it will be both graceful and useful thitasmany 

 shall attend as pcssible. We have also received the first publica- 



tion of the society, containing a coinpli- rendu of the (inaugura- 

 tion meeting of the society, held in April in Paris, and the 

 statutes of the society, which have already appeared in N.VTURE 

 nearly in their final form. We wish the society every success ; its 

 object is essentially decentralisation. Would we in England 

 were in a position to decentralise ! 



Dr. Cobbold, F. R. S., has been appointed to a Professorship 

 of Helminthology at the Royal Veterinary College. During the 

 ensuing winter months he will give a course of lectures on the 

 Parasites and Parasitic Diseases of our domesticated animals. 



Dr. Brow.N'-Srquard has resigned the Chair of Comparative 

 and Experimental Pathology in connection with the Faculty of 

 Medicine in Paris, which he has occupied several years. M. 

 Vulpian has applied for the Chair. 



Dr. Gerhart, of Jena, has been appointed successor to Dr. 

 Bamberger as Professor of Clinical Medicine at Wiirzburg. 



We regret to learn that Mr. M. C. Webster, the acting col- 

 lector at Trichinopuli, to whose exerdorts the Eclipse Expedition 

 owed so much, has been ordered home wi.hout delay for two 

 years on sick certificate. 



O.VE of the most recent applicitims of science to practical 

 purposes, which, according to most people is the only part of 

 science which is wjrth anything, is sufficiently carioui. In the 

 " Mors Electrique" of M. Sidot, we have electricity employed in a 

 manner to combine the study of electricity with a ride or drive into 

 the country in company with a restive horse. Nothing is more 

 simple. In the carriage, or even in (he saddle, wehavea pile systime 

 hrrntctiqm Troit7'L\ and a small induction coil, along the reins the 

 magic wires are laid, and on either side the animal's lower jaw we 

 have a conroniic mctaUiquc. These are the data. The inventor is 

 under the impression that when the quadrup'd's motion becomes 

 too rapid it will be instantly brought to zero by the passage of 

 the spark through the aforesaid jaw, but we do not learn {hat he 

 has tried it. We would suggest that in a cavalry charge it would 

 be most efl"ective. This should be tried at the forthcoming 

 manoeuvres. In war the principle might be extended. The 

 horses might be armed unicorn-wise, with blunderbusses and 

 Abel's fuzes, the couroiinc mdaUiqiK being of course removed 

 from the lower jaw to the novel weapon. Probably in this way 

 the fanctions of the riders might be abohshed altogether; this 

 would bring .about a great saving in the army estimites, and in 

 this way cause the Government to think that there may be some- 

 thing in science after all. 



No. 6 of the Illustrated Catalogue ol the Museum of Com- 

 parative Zoology at Harvard College, just co.ne to hand, con- 

 tains the supplement to the Ophiaridn= and .Astrophydd.x' by 

 Theodore Lyman, with two plates, in which figures are given of 

 the most important of the singular deep-sea Ophiurans brought 

 up by the dreilgings olif the coijt of Fl jrid.r, and described in 

 Bulletin No. 10, vol. i. of the Catalogue. 



Our. common sparrow, as most of our readers are aware, 

 has been for some time naturalised in the New York parks 

 and elsewhere in the United States, for the purpose of keep- 

 ing in check a plague of caterpillars, in which office it is 

 doing yeo-nan service We regret to learn by a paragraph in 

 The Ncio Yor/; Iihiiis/rial Mi'iil/t/y ttiat our compatriots are in 

 danger of extermination by a race of feathered rowdies, also bent 

 upon turning the balance of creation their own way. The spar- 

 row's enemy is the great northern shrike ; and the Industrial 



\ monthly states that one of these "butcher-birds," which eat 

 only the brains of their victims, recently killed a sparrow " by 

 squeezing its held into a crotch made by the fork of two 



' branches, each about half an inch thick." 



