n8 



NA TURE 



[Dec. 4, 1879 



hydrogen gases thus furnished are to be employed in smelting 

 the carboniferous ore of iron, which is reduced by the hydrogen 

 at the high temperature of the flame, thus producing at one 

 operation either steel or pure malleable iron at will. Signor 

 Guidi states, however, that to turn out two tons daily would 

 require the constant employment of a 120 hone-power engine. 



GEOGRAPHICAL NOTES 

 The Lisbon correspondent of the Daily Afccf telegraphs that 

 Ivens and Capello have arrived ill at Loanda, after two years' 

 exploration. They are suffering from fever and other com- 

 plaints induced by privation, and were almost without clothes. 

 According to government instructions, they have completed a 

 general map of Loanda. They explored the rivers Quango and 

 Quanza, and the territories bordering on their basins. They 

 could not descend the Quango to its confluence with the Zaire on 

 account of the resistance of the hostile tribes. Capello appears 

 quite old, and hardly recognisable. Ivens is better, though ill. 

 Both are thorough scientific men. They bring important notes 

 extending over 32 degrees, plans of the territories and the road^, 

 and meteorological, magnetic, and geographical observations 

 made with the excellent instruments they carried. They were 

 well received by the chief of the Motiar.go territory, from which 

 the German explorer, Schultz, was excluded; but the chief 

 would not allow any white man to pass east at the peril of 

 his life. They visited the highlands of Bihe, and explored several 

 rivers to their sources. Nearly all their followers deserted them. 

 They were received with great enthusiasm on their arrival at 

 Loanda, and will go to Mossamedes to recruit, prepare their 

 plans, and write out their observations. The period of their 

 return to Lisbon is uncertain. 



At a late meeting of the Russian Geographical Society some 

 details were communicated as to the expedition exploring North- 

 western Mongolia under M. Potanin. In a letter the traveller 

 describes his route during July and August, which first led from 

 Tsoosilan to the River Kharkiri, and thence to the Lake of 

 Khirghisnor, layers of coal being found on the way. The banks 

 of that lake being barren, the explorers halted near Lake 

 Baganor, only six versts distant from the other sheet of water. 

 Khirghisnor is a great deal larger than Lake Kharaous, and the 

 Mongols asserted the existence of only two such immense reser- 

 voirs in the country — namely, the Oobsa and the Kirghisnor. 

 From the latter the expedition marched south, with intent to 

 strike the point where the waters of Lakes Kharaous and Dur- 

 ganor fall into Dzabchin. On August 4 the travellers came to the 

 salt lake Dzerennor, and not till the 9th did they reach the banks 

 of the River Tachteteli, that being the name applied to the 

 mingled volumes of the large lakes flowing into the Dzabchin. 

 Marching round the southern part of Lake Kharaous, the ex- 

 plorers then arrived at the town of Kobda on September 1, w ith 

 rich scientific collections of all kinds. M. Potanin intended 

 again making for Oolangol, thence proceeding to Oolookem. 



The committee of the Dutch Arctic Expedition have made 

 known their determination to fit out, for the third time, their 

 little sailing schooner Willem Bartnts. The cost of the new 

 expedition is estimated at a little over I, coo/. 



After the presidential address and the paper on Sumatra 

 read at the first meeting of the session, the new number of the 

 Geographical Society's periodical gives us some notes on the 

 Cocos or Keeling Islands, from the pen of Mr. H. O. Forbes, 

 who went out to the East in October of last year for the purpose 

 of investigating the fauna and flora of certain districts in the 

 Malay Archipelago. While in Java, before commencing this 

 work, he availed himself of an opportunity of paying a visit to 

 these far-away islands, in order to ascertain what changes had 

 occurred since the visit of H.M.S. Beagle in 1836; these are 

 shown on the map accompanying his paper. Next we find a 

 note on the boundary line between Chili and Bolivia, illustrated 

 by a map, which explains to some extent the existing disturb- 

 ances in South America. The geographical notes furnish an 

 account of the progress being made towards Lake Tanganyika 

 by Dr. Mullen's successors, the late Mr. Frank Oates's researches 

 in Matabeleland, and Major Biddulph's tour in Chitral and 

 Yassin. There is also some information of interest respecting 

 Transcaucasia. 



A CONTRACT has been concluded by the Molala Shipbuilding 

 ompany, Sweden, to construct a steamer of Molala Bessemer 

 teel, of 100-horse power, to trade between China and Siberia. 



From the Abstract Rep irt of the Indian Surveys for 1877-8 

 we see that a large amount of work was done during the season 

 by the various departments, all now united under one organisa- 

 tion. Some interesting and important details are given of various 

 trans-frontier explorations. 



The October Bulletin of the Paris Geographical Society 

 begins with a long and valuable paper by M. Wiener on the 

 Dead City of Gran-Chimu and the city of Cuzco. The paper 

 is accompanied by large and careful plans of the two cities, and 

 we believe is a valuable contribution to a puzzling problem. 

 Admiral Fleuriot de Langle has a paper on African migrations, 

 and M. Jules Girard on the subsidence of the surface of the Low 

 Countries. M. Hamy gives an interesting comfte rendu of M. 

 G. Retzius's recent wcrk on Finnish Ethnology. 



THE ROYAL SOCIETY 

 ""THE anniversary meeting of the Royal Society was held 

 on December 1, and a somewhat long address was read by the 

 President Mr. Spottiswoode. After referring to some of the 

 losses by death which the Society had sustained, he passed on to 

 business which has occupied the attention of the Council during 

 the current year. 



Two important contributions to the Society's funds are 

 announced. First, an unconditional bequest of 1,000/. by the 

 late Mr. Sidney Ellis, of Leicester ; and secondly, a legacy by 

 the late Sir Walter Trevelyan, " the interest of which is to be 

 applied to the promotion of scientific research." 



The Royal Society, as is well known, possesses a rather 

 extensive gallery of portraits, almost exclusively of Fellows of 

 the Society, but among them also a fine painting of Lord 

 Chancellor Bacon. Many of these portraits, however, have, 

 through the lapse of time, begun to show signs of decay. 

 Acting under the advice of Mr. F. W. Burton, F.S.A., Director 

 of the National Gallery, the Council has entrusted the pictures 

 which seemed most to require attention to the care of Mr. Dyer, 

 of Orchard Street, who is now engaged upon them. Some of 

 the portraits require lining, and others cleaning, or partial restora- 

 tion. As will be seen from those which have been returned to 

 their places, the work appears to have been done in a satisfactory 

 manner. The present appearance of the pictures has been much 

 improved, and it is hoped that these interesting portraits of those 

 who have gone before us may now be rpassed on in an unim- 

 paired condition to future generations. 



Among other acquisitions 973 portraits of Fellows of the 

 Royal Society, formed by the late J. P. Gassiot, Esq., F. R.S., 

 have been bought during the past year. The collection consists 

 mainly of engravings, many of which are of great artistic merit, 

 and in excellent condition. 



During the past year a small but perhaps not unimportant 

 change in the mode of dealing with the papers to be read at the 

 weekly meetings has been made. This consists first, in deciding 

 a week earlier than heretofore, what papers should be advertised 

 for reading : and secondly, in reading each week as many as 

 practicable of those in hand, so as to leave as few as possible 

 to stand over. The weekly journals are now able to announce 

 to the public the papers which will be read at the Royal Society 

 (as has in fact long been the case with other Societies) during the 

 next week. But the main object of this arrangement has been 

 early publication ; that is to say, 'publication both in its technical 

 sense of reading before the Society, and in its more widely 

 accepted sen^e of appearance in the Society's Proceedings. 

 When this was first proposed, it was feared there would soon 

 arrive a period of scientific famine, and that occasions might 

 occur when the Society would meet with no papers before it. 

 Whether this would be so great a calamity as was at first 

 imagined is still an open question, forsuclnhas been the scientific 

 fertility of the season, that the threatened catastrophe has never 

 yet actually occurred. 



"But so far from suffering by a deficiency of matter we have 

 more often found our difficulties in the number of papers to be 

 read in a single evening. And on such occasions the Secretaries 

 have been good enough to take especial pains to make them- 

 selves masters of the contents of the papers, and to c imamnicate 

 in a few words to the meeting the substance of each. It i-, I 

 believe, not too much to say that the ' reading ' of papers 

 carried out in this way has been the most agreeable and instruc- 

 tive, and has been particularly provocative of intelligent and 

 pertinent discussion 



"There is a possible alteration in our arrangements which 



