266 



NA'IURE 



[Jan. 15, 1880 



Mbangala, which flows into the Ruaha. According to Mr. 

 Thomson, the formidable range, called the Konde mountains, is 

 simply the termination of a plateau which rises from an altitude 

 of 3,500 feet in 8° 50' S. lat. to not more than 9,000 feet at the 

 lake. Mr, Thomson was to leave for Lake Tanganyika on 

 September 2S, and we may fairly hope that by now he has 

 completed his explorations, aud is on his way back to the coast. 

 The papers of the evening were "The Grand Canal and Yellow 

 River of China," and " Hankow to Canton overland," by Mr. 

 G. J. Morrison. During the journey referred to in the former, 

 Mr. Morrison was enabled to examine some 200 miles of the 

 Yellow River, a portion of which has materially altered since it 

 was described by any traveller, and his observations are, there- 

 fore, very useful. Mr. Morrison, it may be noted, is of opinion 

 that the Yellow River is now flowing in its natural channel, and 

 that in former times it discharged its waters into the sea 

 north of the Shantung promontory. His description of the 

 condition of the Grand Canal is also interesting, as he looks at 

 it from the point of view of a practical engineer. The other 

 paper, from which only extracts were read, described a journey 

 undertaken with the object of getting some idea of the country 

 through which one of the great railway lines of the future may 

 be expected to run, and a portion of which embraced the rich 

 mineral field of Southern Hunan examined by Baron Richthofen 

 a few years ago. 



An interesting piece of exploration has just been successfully 

 accomplished by the Church Missionary Society's agents in 

 Western Africa. In a small steamer they have ascended the 

 River Binue from its confluence with the Niger to a point 

 probably about 800 miles from the sea. The party penetrated 

 150 miles beyond Haniarnwa, which was reached by Dr. Baikie 

 when in search of Dr. Barlh in 1S54, and a careful survey of the 

 river has been executed. 



M. PETRIMENT {Bulletin of Paris Anthropological Society, 

 t. ii. fasc. 3), in confirmation of M. Madaillac's as-ertion that a 

 blonde race existed in Persia, had engaged a Persian doctor, 

 Mir2a Mohammed, some time resident in Paris, to obtain definite 

 information on this point. According to this gentleman there 

 are about 2 per cent, of blonde persons in the Persian popula- 

 tion, blonde children appearing in brunette families after the 

 lapse of a generation or two. According to local tradition, the 

 white men came from the north, and were sheitdns, or demons ; 

 this evil character is still attached to blonde individuals in 

 Persia, where they are generally impetuous and artful, and 

 seldom possessed of a lymphatic temperament. 



M. DE Ujfalvy, in his recent travels through the Russian 

 territories of Central Asia, has visited the lands of the Galtchas, 

 Sarts, and Tadjiks, where he found that caste and patriarchal 

 authority were rigidly observed. The people are Mussulmans, 

 and consequently polygauiists, and the women are held in great 

 subjection. The Galtchas in their nomadic wanderings ascend 

 the mountain-slopes of Kohistan in search of pasture. To the 

 east of their country we would seem, although close to the 

 plains of Pamir, to be on the extreme limits of the Aryan race, 

 for here in the Kuldja district the oblique-eyed Mongolians 

 begin to predominate. At this point, where the Mountains of 

 Heaven form a line of division, the white and yellow races 

 meet, and even overlap one another to some extent, although 

 the strict observance of caste has hitherto prevented their com- 

 plete fusion, and has left the Aryan races to form isolated ethnic 

 groups in the midst of an otherwise Mongolian population. M. 

 de Ujfalvy is at present engaged in completing the narrative of 

 his travels in this part of Central Asia, and his observations on 

 the distinct characters of the Galtchas and other kindred races 

 can scarcely fail to afford valuable aid in the solution of the 

 vexed question of the limits of demarcation between the Mon- 

 golian and Aryan races. 



In No. S3 of the Zeitschriftoi the Berlin Geographical Society 

 Dr. Hildebrandt concludes the narrative of his journey from 

 Mombassa to Kitue, and this is followed by some remarks on his 

 measurements of heights in the Wakamba land. Apropos of the 

 recent Karl Ritter celebration, we have two papers on that 

 geographer ; one by Pastor Tallin on Michael Servetus as a 

 predecessor of Ritter and Humboldt, and the other by Dr. 

 Marthe on what Ritter did for geography. In a letter from 

 Gerhard Rohlfs, that traveller maintains that none of the 

 greater carnivora are found in the Sahara, while, in reply, Drs. 

 Ascherson and Hartmann endeavour to show that this statement 

 must be received with some modifications The Verhandlungm 



(Nos. 1 and 9, Band vi.) of the same Society contains a paper 

 by Herr Schiitt on his travels in Central Africa. 



Two important congresses will be held next year by the 

 French geographers. The first will be held at Lyons, and will 

 deliberate on the means of regulating the explorations of Africa 

 by French travellers or colonists. The second will be held at 

 Nancy in Summer, at the conclusion of the meeting of the 

 French Association, which will meet at Rheims, on general 

 subjects. 



A deputation waited on the Lord Mayor last week to 

 bespeak his patronage in behalf of Commander Cheyne's elabo- 

 rate and expensive scheme for reaching the North Pole. The 

 Lord Mayor promised the use of the Egyptian Hall to have the 

 scheme " thrashed out " at a public meeting. 



In connection with letters from Lieut. Bove on the work of 

 the North-East Passage Expedition, the Bolletino of the Italian 

 Geographical Society publishes several sheets of illustrations of 

 the natural features along the routes, heads of the natives met 

 with, sledges, implements, and weapons, native houses, &c, 

 besides two excellent maps. 



The Bulletin of the Paris Geographical Society for November 

 contains a translation, by M. Barrande, of the memoir by the 

 Ru^ian Grand Duke Nicholas on the Amu and Uzboi. Also an 

 important paper by Dr. Range, on the cartography of the 

 Brazilian province of Santa Catharina, and the continuation of 

 Admiral Fleuriot de Langle's article on African migrations. 



The new Bulletin of the GeograpMcal Society of Oran, 

 Algeria, is largely occupied with the Trans-Saharan Railway. The 

 question is dealt with from a commercial point of view, and 

 among the other contributions to the subject is a note on the 

 western route and that proposed by General Colonieu. 



The new number of the Bulletin of the Societe de Geographic 

 Commerciale of Bordeaux contains the first portion of an addre s 

 delivered by M. Soleillet on the Trans-Saharan railway projec'. 

 in connection with which he is about to undertake explorations 

 in West Africa. 



The publication of a new geographical journal is announce'!, 

 the Bevista Geografica Internationale. It will appear fortnightly, 

 and will contain original articles in Italian, English, French, 

 and Spanish, not a happy group, we think ; French, English, 

 German, and perhaps Italian, would have been much more 

 representative. The editor is M. A. M. Mizzi, and the journal 

 is published at Malta. 



PHYSICAL NOTES 



An attempt is made in V Eleclric'de by M. C. E. Seguin, fils, 

 to claim for France the honour of the invention of the phono- 

 graph ; firstly, by the plea that M. Leon Scott (who died only- 

 last July) patented the instrument under the name of the 

 phonautograph in 1S57, and secondly, by the statement that M. 

 Charles Cros deposited before the Academie des Sciences, in 

 April, 1S77, seven months before ihe date of Edison's patent, a 

 sealed packet describing the possible reproduction of sounds 

 from recorded traces. In justice to Mr. Edi-on, we can hardly 

 admit the validity of either of these claims. The phonautograph 

 of M. Scott merely recorded the graphic traces of vibrations in 

 sinuous scratches upon a smoked surface, which, therefore, was 

 useless for the purpose of reproduction of the sounds ; and, 

 moreover, Dr. Konig, who worked upon the instrument with M. 

 Scott, and perfected it, has stated to us most candidly that the 

 idea of reproducing the sounds from the recorded traces never 

 occurred either to M. Scott or to himself ; and that neither of 

 them attempted or proposed to obtain graphic traces in hollows 

 and ridges in tinfoil or soft metal, or otherwise than as plane 

 curves. And as for the claims of M. Cros, we have yet to learn 

 that he constructed an actual phonograph, or that his sealed 

 packet contained any descriptions of a sufficiently detailed or 

 practical nature to enable any instrument to be made from them. 



Prof. Borlinetto, of Padua, has devised two very simple 

 and effective pieces of apparatus for showing the passage of 

 electric sparks through such non-conducting liquids as turpen- 

 tine, petroleum, &c. They consist of U-tubes of glass, with or 

 « ithout an intermediate branch, and having platinum wires led 

 down the two branches or introduced through the glass walls, so 

 as nearly to meet, the other extremities of which can receive 

 he discharge from a Leyden jar or from an induction-coil. 



