TRANSACTIONS OP THE SECTIONS, 189 



the huge mass becomes detached, or poised upon a pivot so small as to allow it to 

 oscillate as a Rocking-stone. 



Notices on ilie Efhnologi/, Geography, and Commerce of the Caucasus. 

 By CAPTAiif Cameron. 



The locality referred to was the Caucasian Isthmus. Hercules, Castor and 

 Pollux, Ulysses, and other Greek worthies were all said to have done something 

 towards opening the Caucasus to the enterprise of their coimtrymen. It grew to 

 be pre-eminently a land of marvels. After reference to the ancient traditions of 

 the Amazons, it was stated that the Caucasus had played its part in history, and 

 especially made itself felt in the movements of the two important continents which 

 it both separated and linked together. The Caucasus was a laboratory in which 

 nature had been working on the largest scale, and magnificent results were given 

 in its varied geological formation, &c. The beginning of the establishment of the 

 Cossacks in the Caucasus dated some centuries back, and their numbers were 

 systematically augmented by Peter the Great and his successors. After a reference 

 to the various Tartar tribes, and to the Tcherkissis, whose habits were graphically 

 described, other portions of the inhabitants of the Caucasus were similarly noticed. 

 So far from Shamil being the chief of the Circassians, they looked upon his " level- 

 ling " system of goveioiment with suspicion and dislike ; and it was only among 

 the Tchetchess and Lesghins that Shamil had any power. The Caucasus possessed 

 every diversity of soil ; it was capable of producing indigo and cotton. The silk 

 trade had received a stimulus by the failure of the supply in other quarters. Dm-ing 

 the Irish famine, 125,000 bushels of Indian corn were exported to this coimby. In 

 the Caucasus, as elsewhere in the East, Swiss manufactures were gaining rapidly 

 on those of England, a fact which Mr. Henies ascribed to the circumstance that 

 hand-loom patterns and colours could be constantly |varied without difficulty or 

 expense, which, he said, was not the case with power-loom weaving. In the bazaars 

 in Mingrelia, however, the average of British goods as against Swiss was generally 

 as three to two. Steam had been introduced both on the Black and Caspian Seas 

 and elsewhere. 



On the Geography and Natural History of Western Equatorial Africa. 



By P. B. Du Challlxt. 



This singular region, explored by the author dming the years 1856-7-8-9, lay 

 within two degrees on either side of the equator, and extended for 400 miles into 

 the interior. Having described its physical featiues, its partly swampy, partly 

 mountainous character, and its dense forests, which ascend to the very tops of the 

 mountains ; its rivers, the Muni, the Moondah, and the Gaboon, all rising in the 

 range of mountains known as SieiTa del Crj-stal, 60 or 80 miles ii-om the west ; also 

 the Nazareth, the Mexias, and the Eemand-vaz, the latter chiefly fed by the Ogobai, 

 and this last fed by the Rembo Ngouyai and the Eembo Okanda ; the traveller, re- 

 verting to the mountains, said, " Judging from my own examination, and from the 

 most carefid inquiries among the people of the far interior, I think there is good 

 reason to believe that an important mountain-range divides the continent of Afi-ica 

 nearly along the line of the equator, starting from the west from the range which 

 nms along the coast north and south, and ending in the east, probably in the coun- 

 try south of the mountains of Abyssinia, or perhaps temiinating- abruptly to the 

 north of the lake Tanganyika of Captains Burton and Speke." To the existence of 

 this range, and of the flat, wooded, damp coimtry at its foot, he attributed the fact 

 that Manometanism had never in Afr-ica spread south of the equator. The natural 

 history of the country was next referred to at some length. With regard to the gorilla, 

 he considered it probable that its range was coextensive with the dense jimgle of 

 the interior. He had no doubt that with the advance of civilization in that region 

 this monster would disappear ; and it was a great satisfaction to the scientific world 

 and to himself to know that, whatever might happen, the world woidd have, from 

 the pen of one of its most illustrious zootomists, Professor Owen, an imperishable 

 record of the most wonderful anthropoid animal yet desciibed. 



