TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION E. 1105 
to their provinces, and are employed there. The course of instruction for the rangers’ 
class embraces vegetable physiology, the elements of physics and chemistry, mathe- 
matics, road-making and building, surveying, sylviculture, working plans, forest 
utilisation, forest botany, the elements of mineralogy and geology, forest law 
and the elements of forest etiology. The course for foresters is much more simple. 
The preparation of manuals is in progress, and a library, museum, chemical labo- 
ratory, observatory and forest garden have been established. 
The period of probation in the forest before entry into the schoo! has a twofold 
object: firstly, to enable the theoretical course to be understood; secondly, to 
eliminate men who are unsuited to a forest life before time and money have been 
spent on their training. As a rule, the students are employés of the Forest Depart- 
ment, and they draw their salaries and maintain themselves while at the school; 
no instruction fees being charged. It would not at present be possible to get candi- 
dates whose maintenance and education are entirely paid for by their friends. 
Nine men who have left the school hold appointments worth from 125]. to 2001. a 
year, and this ought to draw eligible candidates. Conservators of forests say that 
the men trained at the school are markedly superior to their untrained comrades. 
The area of reserved forests has largely increased of late, and the prospects of the 
students are very good. During the session of 1884 there were forty-six students 
of all classes at the school, of whom eight were from Madras and seven from native 
States, the chiefs of which have been induced by the establishment of the school to 
take measures for the protection of their forests. The school has now been made 
an imperial institution, and this is a great advantage in every way. The expenses 
of the school in 1884 are said to haye been 1,9111. 
2. Brazil. By Corin Macxeyziz, F.R.G.S. 
The author gave an account of the physical geography of Brazil, of its resources 
and inhabitants. He contrasted the vast area of the country and its scant popu- 
lation, and said that if peopled as densely as Europe it would hold five hundred 
mullion souls instead of ten millions, as at present. 
3. On the Progress of African Philology. By R. Neepuam Cost, F.R.G.S. 
Taking Dr. Latham’s paper on the subject, read _at the meeting of the British 
Association at Oxford in 1847, as a starting-point, Mr. Cust showed how, during- 
the last thirty-eight years, African philology, or linguistic geography, had ex-. 
tended to a marvellous degree, and, under the impetus given to the study of African 
languages by missionaries and travellers, new additions were being made every: 
year to our knowledge. 
4. On the Changes which have taken place in Tunis since the French Pro- 
tectorate. By Lieut.-Colonel R. L. Piayratr. 
The author did not attempt to give a history of the events which led to the 
treaty of the Kasr-es-Saeed, by which the Bey lost his independence, and the actual 
government of the country became vested in the French Resident-General. After 
a few remarks on the manner in which the French are in the habit of governing 
their colonies, and the disfavour in which the foreign element is held, he bore his 
willing testimony to the important work of civilisation and improvement which is 
now being carried on in Tunis. He alluded to the fact that he had been the first 
foreigner to pass through the celebrated Khomair country in 1876, when it was 
simply a blank space on the maps then existing, and when neither private travellers 
nor Beylical officials were permitted to cross its frontiers. 
He again visited this country last year, and traversed nearly the same ground, 
but on this occasion over admirably constructed carriage roads, passing from the. 
Algerian frontier to Ain-Draham, a military station in the centre of the Khomair 
mountains, and thence down to the valley of the Medjerda through which now 
1885. 48 
