534 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION E. 
In the south-west of the Sonora Desert, in the mountains that fringe the 
coast, and in the island of Tiburon live the Seri Indians. They form a separate 
family in themselves, and are quite distinct in religion, language, and customs 
from all other North American tribes. Agriculture is unknown to them, and 
they live a nomadic life more or less, building flimsy brush-shelters as they go 
along. ‘They depend for their food on hunting and fishing, and various forms 
of wild fruits, berries, and roots. From the local character of their gods and 
other evidence, it is probable that they have lived in this country for countless 
generations and are, unlike the Papago, autochthonous. 
2. The Libyan Desert and Ennedi. By W. J. Harpina Kiva. 
The Libyan Desert may be taken as stretching from the Nile to the Tibesti 
Mountains, and from the fertile belt on the Mediterranean coast to the boundary 
of the Sudan vegetation. The map of this district is based mainly upon a few 
travellers’ routes, and the surveys ot the Egyptian Government in the Egyptian 
oases ; the remainder of it depends almost entirely upon information derived from 
natives. 
The north-eastern portion of the desert is best known. It consists of a high 
barren plateau, below which, in large depressions, lie the chief oases. These 
have been inhabited from very early times. They are irrigated by primitive 
artesian wells, which are supposed to date from Roman times. They are very 
fertile, and produce magnificent dates, besides other fruits and a few cereals. 
The natives on the whole are a feeble race, probably owing to the prevalence of 
fever. In many places the sand-dunes are encroaching on the cultivation. The 
effect of sand erosion on the plateau is very marked; sand-dunes cover large 
areas in the northern part of the desert. The dunes run in parallel belts, and 
are either longitudinal dunes or crescentic in shape. The belts run north and 
south, converging slightly towards the north. 
It was formerly supposed that the greater part of the Libyan Desert was 
covered with sand, but this was found not to be the case. A large plateau, 
starting about twenty miles south-west from Dakhleh oasis, and running west, 
banks up practically the whole of the dunes. South of the plateau is a large 
sandy plain, rising towards the south. The top of a hill in this plain was found 
to be 2,150 feet above sea-level. 
South of lat. 20° N. a number of fertile spots are reported to exist. West of 
Kowera the desert is said to be all rock, intersected by fertile valleys. The 
water collects in pools on the rocks during the rains. West of Ennedi is a basin, 
into which the rainfall from the surrounding country drains, forming swamps 
or pools in the rains, which to a great extent evaporate in the dry weather. 
Ennedi is reported to be full of Roman remains. In Ershay Lake there are said 
to be crocodiles. The rock desert ends one day east of Kowora.’ Further east 
the country is said to be flat and sandy. 
The valley ot the Bedayat is reported to contain many springs, which overflow 
into pools. The Arabs say the rainfall from the east and north sides of the 
Tibesti range discharges into an old river-bed—the Wady-el-Fardy—which 
supplies the oasis of Kufa with water and then runs past Farabub, Siwa, and 
Bzhrein to the Nile.’ Another old watercourse—the Wady Howar—is said to 
receive the wadys that. flow north from the Sudan ‘and to run into the Nile valley 
near Dongola. 
3. The Submarine Canyon of the Hudson River. 
By Dr. J. W. Spencer. 
4. Note on some Effects of Climatic Pulsation in a Highland Region.: 
By Professor J. L. Myres, M.A. 
The researches of Ellsworth Huntington and others have made familiar the 
conception of climatic pulsation, and the effects of such pulsation in compelling) 
the pastoral inhabitants of great grasslands, like those which fringe Central Asia 
