Dec. 23, 1 8 So] 



NA TURE 



i«5 



most striking feature of tlie work is the successful journey of 

 Dr. Lenz from Morocco to Timbuctoo and thence to St. Louis 

 in Senegal. In the region to the south of the Congo some good 

 work has been done. Dr. Buchner has probably got beyond the 

 district known as the kingdom of Muata Yanvo, while Major von 

 Mechow has reached the Coango from Malange by following 

 down the valley of the Cambo, a tributaiy of that river. The 

 navigation above the junction is obstructed by cataracts, but 

 Major von Mechow did not expect to meet with any difliculty in 

 sailing down the Coango to its mouth in the Congo. Dr. Togge 

 is on his way out to Portuguese West Africa to proceed to the 

 interior to found a station at Mussumba, the chief town in 

 Muata Yanvo's kingdom. Herr Flegel has been exploring 

 the Niger in the Henry Vam, and expects shortly to reach 

 Sokoto. Dr. J. Hann has a paper in this number on the 

 meteorological and hypsometrical results of Rholfs' expedition to 

 the Kufra Oasis. The Society have received instructions from 

 the Imperial Government regarding the manner in which the 

 3750/. granted by the Reichstag is to be divided. Dr. Gerhard 

 Rohlfs' expedition to Abyssinia will receive 1600/., and 150/. is 

 to form a reserve fund for this same undertaking. The expedi- 

 tion now being organised at Zanzibar under the leadership of 

 Herr von Scholer will receive Soo/., and the remaining 1200/. 

 are for Dr. Pogge, who is attempting to reach the capital of 

 Muata Yanoo, in Central Africa, in order to found a station 

 there. The Society has also granted 250/. to lien- R. E. Flegel, 

 who ascended the Binue River this year. 



The new number (No. 9 of vol. vii.) of the Ve>'handlungen of 

 the Berlin Geographical Society contains papers by Herr Gustav 

 Niederlein on some of the scientific results of an Argentine expe- 

 dition to the Rio Negro in Patagonia, and by Dr. Nachtigal on 

 the ethnological place of the Tubu and Kanuri. 



The December number of Pdcr7naniC s Mittlicilungen con- 

 tains an interesting paper by Dr. Rholfs on the Libyan Desert, in 

 which he shows that it is the eastern part of the Sahara, and not 

 the western, that is the real desert, broken only here and there 

 by oases. Indeed the extreme west of the Sahara, for a distance 

 of from 400 to 500 kilometres from the coast, does not strictly 

 belong to the desert at all ; and even the eastern half, the more we 

 know of it, the more numerous are its oases found to be. There 

 is an eclectic article on the Liu-Kiu Islands, by Dr. v. Kloden ; 

 a paper on the New Volcano on Lake Ilopango ; and a map of 

 the South Coast of Franz Josef Land, based on Mr. Leigh 

 Smith's recent discoveries. In the Monatsberiiht some interest- 

 ing details are given of Di-. Junker's journey to and his sojourn 

 in the Niam-Niam country. A letter fi-om Dr. Emiu Bey, the 

 Governor of the Egyptian Equatorial Province, informs us that 

 Mtesa, King of Uganda, whom Mr. Stanley so whitewashed, is 

 as tyrannical and bloodthirsty as ever, and does not intend to be 

 either Christianised or Mohammedanised, but to adhere to the 

 ways of his forefatliers. Dr. Emin is anxious that explorers 

 should turn their attention to the Equatorial Province, which 

 forms a splendid field for botanists, zoologists, and other 

 specialists. 



Notwithstanding the belief in some quarters that the 

 American Arctic steamer Jeannette has been lost with all hands, 

 it is thought in San Francisco that Capt. De Long and his staff 

 and crew may have only abandoned her, and be waiting succour 

 at some point. An attempt is therefore being made to get a 

 small schooner sent out next spring to search Wrangell Land. 



Early in the present year Mr. \V. H. Cornish, of the 

 Surveyor-General's Department at Adelaide, was engaged for 

 some two months in examining the country in the far interior for 

 the extension of the trigonometrical survey and traverse of the 

 Herbert River. In about lat. 30° 59' near that river he crossed 

 a piece of country which by his account almost baftles descrip- 

 tion ; it was flood country of the Herbert, and was completely 

 rotten. "Cracked ground," he reports, as a term is scarcely 

 applicable, for there were yawning chasms from four to five feet 

 deep, and even deeper, and eight to twelve inches wide at every 

 few feet. The country indeed was so bad that it took the camels 

 six hours to travel seven miles, and Mr. Cornish's difficulties 

 were increased by the unusually intense heat of the weather. 

 Mr. Cornish believes that before long the cattle-trade from the 

 part of Queensland which he visited will go southwards to 

 Australia as soon as the settlers \\\\o are beginning to open 

 up the country on the Herbert, Diamantina, and Mulligan 

 become sufficiently acquainted with the means of communica- 

 tion. During his journey Mr. Cornish did not see more than 



300 natives, who were all friendly, but he believes there are large 

 numbers in the region he travelled through, and that it would 

 not be prudent to trust them. 



Dr. Laws, the head of the Livingstonia station on Lake 

 Nyassa, is actively engaged on linguistic work. He has trans- 

 lated various portions of the New Testament into Chinyanja, 

 and the Laing trustees have agreed to publish his translation of 

 St. Mark's Gospel. Dr. Laws has also begun the Yahitonga 

 language spoken at Bandawi, and he has collected a short 

 vocabulary of the Chungu dialect at the north end of the lake. 

 The Livingstonia and Foreign Missions Committee of the Free 

 Church of Scotland have recently agreed that, on the assurance 

 that there will be no difficulty there as to civil government, owing 

 to the presence of powerful chiefs, Bandawi shall be made the 

 principal port of the mission on Lake Nyassa, while sanitary 

 out-stations are to be sought on the neighbouring hills among the 

 Angoni. As soon as possible however the east side of the lake 

 is to be explored, in the hope of finding a better sanitarium on 

 the so-called Livingstone Mountains. 



Messrs. Griffith and Hutley, who lately established the 

 first mission station on the west side of Lake Tanganyika at 

 Mtowa, near the mouth of the Lukuga Creek, have sent home to 

 the London Missionary Society some information respecting the 

 religious notions of the Waguha. There appears to be a marked 

 difference on this point between the tribes on the opposite shores 

 of the lake. Those on the east side have no images or idols, but 

 on the west shore they have them in great numbers, and have 

 certain beliefs connected with them. Mr. Grifiith observes that 

 the first thing which strikes the African traveller on entering the 

 western half of the continent is an image at the entrance of 

 every village, besides many others inside it. The image is in 

 imitation of the human figure, and is called Mkissi, which is the 

 same as the Mzimu of the Swahili, and means spirit. 



The new Bulletin of tlie Belgian Geographical Society con- 

 tains reports relating to the International African Association's 

 expeditions in East Africa, including tables of meteorohjgical 

 observations taken by M. Popelin. There is also a report on 

 the "Conference Geodesique Internationale de Munich," and 

 an essay by Col. Verstraete on biological geography. 



The Bulletin of the Norman Geogi'aphical Society contains a 

 paper by M. G. Gravier on M. Paul Soleillet's journey to Adrar 

 between December, 1879, and May, iSSo, as well as the con- 

 tinuation of M. Ch. Benner's journey from M'ruli to the capital 

 of Unyoro. 



The Italian Expedition to the Antarctic Regions will not set 

 out till 1882, but Lieut. Bove will shortly set out on ^board a 

 whaling vessel to make a voyage of reconnaissance. 



Two Englishmen, with sixteen men belonging to au Indian 

 convoy, are reported to have arrived at Yarkand from the direc- 

 tion of Tibet, whither they returned after visiting Kashgar. 



M. Rabourdin, who accompanied Col. Flatters on his survey 

 for the proposed TraasSaharan Railway, reports that he dis- 

 covered numerous remains of cut flints, not less than eighteen 

 manufactories being found in a length of 800 kilometres from 

 Wargla. He also found remains of the great horned oxen which, 

 according to Herodotus, were found in the country of the 

 Garamantes. 



Dr. Nachtigal has furnished the Tour dii Monde with a 

 rhutni of the concluding portion of the forthcoming volume of 

 his "Reise in Afrika " in advance of publication, and it now 

 appears in that periodical under the title of "Voyage du Bornou 

 au Baguirmi," accompanied by a sketch-map and some very 

 interesting illustrations. 



We hear that the Geographical Society of Marseilles have 

 awarded their gold medal to Major Serpa Pinto for Iiis journey 

 across Africa. 



According to the Echo du Japan the King of Corea has been 

 induced to make an offer of entering into treaties wiih foreign 

 powers, through his fear of his kingdom being annexed by Russia, 

 and he has despatched two envoys to open negotiations. Though 

 the opening of Corea will hardly be of any great commercial 

 importance, it will pave the way for interesting geograpliical 

 researches in a country which is almost unknown, except from 

 the imperfect accounts of Roman Catholic missionaries. 



The first volume of Lowenberg's " Geschichte der geo- 

 graphischen Entdeckungs- und Forschungsreisen," which treats 



