570 



NATURE 



[Oct. 14, 1880 



by Major H. G. Prout of the Egyptian Staff are also of value, 

 and are accompanied by a map of routes i:i the two provinces, 

 constructed by the Society's draughtsman from the reconnaissances 

 of various officers in the service of the Khedive. Mr. E. Colborne 

 Baber, lately our Consular representative at Chungking in We-tern 

 China, also communicates through the Foreign Office some brief 

 remarks under the heading of " Approximate Determination of 

 Positions in South-Western China," to which are appeniled a 

 number of tables of observations for latitude, &c. 



In the middle of last January Mr. W. S. Jerdan and a small 

 party started from the Eiderslie station on the Diamantina Kiver, 

 in Western Queensland, for the purpose of exploring the Mackinlay 

 Ranges for gold. Leaving the Booker-Booker Mountain, with 

 its dark fringe of gidya scrub, on their left, and Mount Munro on 

 the right, they travelled up tlie Diamantina over splendidly 

 grassed downs, and as they advanced up the river they found 

 that the grasses became even finer and herbs more plentiful. 

 After eight days' marching the party reached the neighbourhood 

 of the Mackinlay River, and they report that the country passed 

 over for some time previously was principally level plain, and 

 just at that season perfectly bare, with the exception of a few 

 tussocks. After about another week they got out of the low 

 country and obtained their first good view of the Mackinlay 

 Ranges, which they describe as presenting a very picturesque 

 appearance in the distance, with their numerous pinnacles, peaks, 

 and flat-topped mountains. The country along the ranges is 

 covered with grani'e boulders, or else consists of decomposed 

 granite flats infested n ith spinifex, with numerous sandy creeks 

 running through it in all directions. The party spent about two 

 months in searching for gold, but met with little success. 



SiGNOR BiANCHi has reported to the Milan Society, which 

 .sent him out to Shoa and other parts of North-Eastern Africa 

 for the purpose of making commercial explorations, that he has 

 been able to make some corrections in the position of places as 

 given in our existing maps. Antotto he places in 8° 53' N. lat., 

 36° 15' E. long., instead of its present position further north. 

 Fanfinni is really north-north-east and not south of Antotto, 

 while the Salala Mountains are fifty kilometres from Fanfinni, 

 and not close to it. Lake Zonay he has not met with, though 

 his route ought to have taken him to it, according to the map. 



The United States Navy Department have received through 

 the Russian Government a letter from the Captain of the Arctic 

 Exploration steamer Jcanndti, dated from Cape Serdze Kamcn, 

 August 29, 1879, which reports the arrival of the Jcatindtc at 

 that place on the afternoon of the above date. The letter states 

 that the members of the expedition were all well, and that they 

 expected to sail that night for Wrangell Land, by way of 

 Kaliutchin Bay. This news has taken more than a year to 

 reach America. The Corwin has arrived at San Francisco, and 

 is reported to have searched all the region between Point Barrow 

 and Herald Island, without finding any trace of the exj edition. 

 Still he thinks there is no reason yet to give up hope. 



The new number. of L' Exploration is an improvement on 

 previous ones. We have a good article on the commercial 

 relations between France and Russia ; information as to the 

 progress to their destination of MM. Revoil and Crevaux ; an 

 interesting analysis of an article on Ausland, on the country of 

 Muata Yanvo, a letter from Dr. Quintin on a former expedition 

 to the Upper Niger, and letters from Matteucci on the progress 

 of his expedition in the Sudan. The notes are also much better 

 edited. 



Capello and Ivens have furnished to the Portuguese Govern- 

 ment a detailed account of their African explorations, a great 

 number of drawings, and a comprehensive map containing an 

 important part of Portuguese Africa, and also the adjacent 

 territories. Next year Capello and Ivens will return to Africa 

 to finish their explorations, and make a complete chart of the 

 province of Angola. 



The death has just taken place at Pitminster, near Taunton, 

 of Capt. Ilobson, of the Royal Na%'y, who in his earlier days 

 took an active part in the search for the remains of the late Sir 

 John Franklin, and was the discoverer of the records which 

 afforded the clue to the lamented explorer's fate. He was 

 second in command, then holding the position of lieutenant to 

 Capt. McClintock, who, in the year 1845, sailed in the Fox to 

 search for the Franklin Expedition. Hobson was the leader of 

 one of the parties which went in search of traces of Franldin, 

 and he succeeded in finding the brief record which only too 



clearly set at rest the conjectures which the public entertained as 

 to Sir John Franklin's fate. 



The expedition which left France on October 5 for the ex- 

 ploration of the country between the Upper Seneo-al and the 

 Niger, though mainly for military and commercial purposes, is 

 likely, if successful, to add greatly to the fulness and precision 

 of our knowledge of that region of Africa. Astronomical, geo- 

 detical, and topographical ofiicers accompany the expedition, so 

 that we may expect important scientific results. The terminus 

 on the Niger wiU be either Bamakou or Dina, above Yanina 

 and Segon. 



Col. FlatiERs has returned from his explorations in the 

 Touareg region. 



The Wellington correspondent of the Colonics and India 

 states that the area of the Crown forest lands in New Zealand in 

 1879 was estimated at 10,158,870 acres, but it has been proved 

 that some of the most valuable kinds of timber have been reck- 

 lessly used, and it is said that at the present rate of consumption 

 all the splendid kauri forests will be exhausted in twenty-one 

 years, and that the value of the timber will be about 11,000,000/. 

 He does not however appear to have taken into consideration 

 the very serious efl"ect which this wholesale destruction of forests 

 will have upon the climate of New Zealand. 



PROF. ASAPH HALL ON THE PROGRESS OF 



ASTRONOMY^ 

 A STRONOMY, in some of its forms, reaches back to the 

 ■'^ most distant historical epochs, and the changes that it has 

 undergone during this long lapse of time give to this science a 

 peculiar interest. In no other branch of human knowledge 

 have we such a long and continuous history of the search after 

 truth, of the painful struggle through which men have passed 

 in freeing themselves from theories approved by the wise of their 

 own times, and in overthrowing beliefs which had become in- 

 corporated into the life and culture of those times. Perhaps the 

 grand array of the heavens, and the vast phenomena which they 

 display, naturally led men to the invention of complicated 

 theories ; but these passed away at last before the test of obser- 

 vation and the criticism of sceptical men ; and the Copernican. 

 theory of our solar system, Kepler's laws of elliptical motion, 

 and the New Ionian law of gravitation, gave to astronomy a real 

 scientific character. 



The discovery of the laws that govern the motions of the 

 heavenly bodies, and the construction of the theory of these 

 motions, demanded from practical astronomy better observations 

 and a more accurate determination of the orbits of the planets 

 and the moon, or of the constants that en:er into the problems ot 

 celestial mechanics ; and this demand led to an improvement in 

 the instruments, and in the art of observing. The astronomers 

 and instrument-makers of England and France led the w ay in 

 these improvements. The great national observatories of those 

 countries were established, and in England, Flamsteed and 

 Sharp, Bird and Bradley, were foremost in raising practical 

 astronomy to the condition of satisfying the demands of theory. 

 But theoretical astronomy was soon to receive a wonderful ad- 

 vancement. Perhaps no one contributed more powerfully to 

 this progress than Lagrange. The writings of this man are 

 models of simplicity and elegance ; and yet so complete and 

 general are his inves'igations, that they contain the fundamental 

 theorems of celestial mechanics. By the invention and 1 erfec- 

 tion of the method of the variation of the arbitrary constants of 

 a problem, and by the establishment of the differential equations 

 of a planetary orbit depending on the partial differential coeffi- 

 cients of a single function, Lagrange reduced the question of 

 perturbations to its simplest form, and gave the means of deduc- 

 ing easily the most interesting conclusions on the past and future 

 condition of our solar system. To supplement this great theorist 

 there was needed another kind of genius. Combining the 

 highest mathematical skill with unequalled sagacity and common 

 sense in its application, Laplace gathered up and presented in a 

 complete and practical form the whole theory of celestial 

 mechanics. Besides his numerous and brilliant discoveries in 

 theoretical astronomy, Laplace gave us some of the finest chap- 

 ters ever written on the theory of attraction,'' and a complete 

 treatise on the calculus of probability. 



^ Address as Vice-President of Section A, at the Boston meeting of the 

 American Association. 

 2 " Ein schones Document der feinsten analytischen Kunst." — Gauss. 



