132 REPORT—1863. 
and lakes, as well as of the Indian remains and buildings which he has traced 
in it. 
Another American subject to be brought before us will doubtless bring to our 
halls many persons interested in the triumphs of mechanical skill when practically 
opps to the overcoming of great difficulties presented by physico-geogra- 
phical features. Mr. William Wheelwright has commenced the execution of a 
stupendous engineering work, called the Great Central Argentine Railroad, to which 
he formerly called the attention of the Royal Geographical Society, and which is 
destined to connect the great port of Buenos Ayres, on the Atlantic, with the city 
of Copiapo and the port of Caldera, on the Pacific. From the Pass of San Francisco 
in the Andes (16,000 feet high), it will descend the western side of those mountains 
through the valley of Paipote, and reach the city of Copiapo, 1300 feet above the 
ocean; thence continuing to Caldera, one of the finest ports in the Pacific, after a 
descent of 246 miles from the culminating point of the road in the Andes. With 
the exception of one inclined plane of five or six miles, the immense elevation is 
to be traversed by locomotive engines; for Mr. Wheelwright has already had a 
railroad constructed from the valley of Copiapo to the mineral district of Charma- 
cillo, on which the trains run twelve miles an hour, in ascending 1900 feet in nine 
miles !—a gradient unheard of, I believe, in Europe. 
In the commencement of this Address I spoke of the imperfect means we pos- 
sessed in 1838 of reaching rapidly this flourishing town by rail; and still less then 
had the genius and sagacity of Wheatstone oyerspread the countries with the electric 
telegraph. Such however has been the progress, that in 1861, at Manchester, we 
interchanged questions and answers with the philosophers of St. Petersburg during 
an evening assembly ; and advances have been effected for transmitting telegrams 
round the world. A vast stride will be made in the ensuing winter by the extension 
of the telegraph from Constantinople through Asia Minor, and thence vid the 
Persian Gulf to the country of Mekran, at the head of the Indian Ocean, and so to 
the British possessions in India. The preliminary researches which have been 
made towards the establishment of this overland electric line to British India have, 
indeed, already laid open to us countries which, though unknown to the moderns, 
were seats of power when Alexander the Great and his lieutenants invaded India. 
At the same time other efforts are in progress to carry a system of telegraphs from 
Russia through Siberia, and thence across the Desert of Gobi to Pekin. 
The great desideratum, however, of connecting Europe with America by a Sub- 
marine Telegraph remains to be accomplished. With a view to that desirable end, 
the Council of the Royal Geographical Society warmly supported a proposal by 
Dr. Wallich to effect a complete survey of the intervening sea-bottom as a pre- 
cursor to the actual laying down of a cable upon the vast unknown irregularities of 
the submarine surface ; such an effort being certain to throw much light on Natural 
History and Physical Geography. The soundings which ascertain the nature of the 
bottom of the ocean, not only give us the outlines and characters of various sunken 
rocks, sands, and mud-banks, and of vast and deep cavities, but inform us where 
the under-currents prevail, and where at vast depths the surface is tranquil and un- 
ruffled in some places, whilst in others submarine volcanos disturb the sea-bottom. 
Nay more, these submarine operations have taught us that some of the lower 
animals cannot only live, but flourish, preserving even their colours, at the enor- 
mous depth of one mile and a half. We thus see how the efforts of the nautical 
surveyors and the engineers to spread the electric telegraph are not merely destined 
to be useful to mankind, but also to elicit great and important truths in Natural 
History, the development of which is specially connected with the pursuits of the 
geographer, 
In adverting to the consideration of the other science which this Section em- 
braces, it gives me pleasure to be able to report that the Ethnological Society is in 
& prosperous and satisfactory state, having within the last three years greatly in- 
creased the number of its members and improved its financial condition. This 
satisfactory result is in great measure due to the vigorous exertions and numerous 
contributions of my eminent friend, its last President, Mr. John Crawfurd, whom I 
am happy to see among us at this Meeting. Under his auspices the Ethnological 
Society brought out last year a volume of Transactions, forming the first of a new 
