TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION E. 943 



for sending out a finely-equipped expedition under Dr. Erich von Drygalsld in 

 1900, and the Royal Geographical Society has headed a suhscription list for a 

 British expedition with 5,000?. It is urgently important that the great expeditions 

 now being organised should not be in any sense rival projects ; but that they should 

 work in harmony, so as to make the greatest possible number of simultaneous and 

 comparable observations on .such important and little-known phenomena as the 

 meteorology and magnetic conditions of the south polar area. The preliminary 

 results of the expeditions already at work will probably arrive in time to enable 

 the plans of the larger enterprises to be laid with greater certainty than our present 

 knowledge of the region will allow. 



3. The National Photograiyhic Record. By Sir Benjamin Stone, M.P. 



4. Sokotra. By Mrs. Theodore Bent. 



The name of the Island of Sokotra is probably a remnant of its old name, Diu 

 Sukutera, corrupted by the Greeks into Dioscorides. It may, as Marriette Bey 

 suggested, represent To Nuter of the Egyptian monuments. 



Though geographically African, it is politically Arabian, having from far back 

 ages been under the rule of the Mahri Sultan, as it is now. 



The principal language spoken is called Sokoterioti. Mahri, or Mehri, and 

 Arabic are also spoken, and many words of these languages are mingled in Soko- 

 terioti, chiefly the former. The language is very polysyllabic. 



The chief mountain range is Haghier, a high-shouldered, many-peaked mass. 

 The highest point is Jebel Bit Molek, at 4,900 feet. All but the highest needles 

 are densely covered with vegetation, where the civet cat is the largest wild beast, 

 unless the wild ass may be considered such. 



The north of the island has many khors, or inlets, where the sea runs in a mile 

 or more, and also many lagoons fringed with palms and mangrove, separated by 

 sandy bars from the sea. 



The rivers on the north reach the lagoons, those on the south lose themselves 

 in the sandy plain of Noget. In many places the mountains run out to the sea. 

 There are many streams in the mountains, but little water in the E., W., and 

 particularly S.AV. parts of the island. 



Inland large flocks and herds are tended by Bedouin living in little oval 

 houses or mountain caves, according to the season. Pasture is very plentiful. The 

 coast villages are inhabited by mongrel races, who export ghee and sharks' fins, 

 but little of the myrrhs, gums, aloes, or dragon's blood once so famous. There is 

 little cultivation of gourds, jowari, and tobacco, but tea and coffee might possibly 

 grow. 



Natural vegetation assumes strange forms, as adeniums and cucumber trees, 

 with swollen trunk, dragon's blood trees, euphorbias, &c. There were an enor- 

 mous variety of non-marine molluscs. The inhabitants are peaceable and honest. 

 We saw no traces of Christianity but a few inscribed crosses, none whatever of 

 Greek occupation, and little of Portuguese. 



5. The Upper Nile. By Sir Charles W. Wilson, R.E., K.C.B., F.B.S. 



6. Twenty-eight Years in Central Australia. By Louis de Rougemont. 



I 



