332 



NATURE 



\_Feb. 5, \\ 



plan for utilising African elephants, to which we have before 

 referred, is quite feasible. 



At a meeting which was held at Palmerston, in the Northern 

 Territory, on the arrival of Mr. Alexander Forrest's expedition 

 from West Australia, Mr. Hill, the second in command, and the 

 geologist of the party, stated that it was painful to think how 

 little had been done in the way of prospecting for minerals, lie 

 believed that a search in the north and west portions of the terri- 

 tory would well repay the trouble and that there was more 

 mineral wealth in the neighbourhood than was imagined. 



M. Brau de St. Pol-Lias, the originator of the "Colons- 

 Explorateur " scheme, has communicated to the French Geo- 

 graphical Society a letter which he has received from Dr. Ruck, 

 a missionary in Sumatra, in which he furnished the geographical 

 results of a journey in the Batak country. His examination of 

 Lake Tebah shows that there is no river flowing out at the north- 

 east, as has been previously supposed, and that, contrary to 

 earlier statements, there is a river flowing out of the south end 

 of the lake, which is thought to empty into the sea on the east 

 coast of the island, though its course does not appear to have 

 been examined so far at present. 



The French Government have entrusted M. Th. Lecart with a 

 " gratuitous " mission to investigate the ornithology and entomo- 

 logy of the region between the Senegal and the Niger, and MM. 

 Brau de St. Pol-Lias and E. de Lacroix to collect ethno- 

 graphical specimens in Sumatra. 



M. Savorgnan de Brazza, who is now on the west coast of 

 Africa, has been entrusted by the French branch of the Interna- 

 tional African Association with the formation of their first sta- 

 tion, which will probably be located on the upper waters of the 

 Ogowe, where M. de Brazza has already made important geo- 

 graphical discoveries. Capt. Bloyet is to be the founder of the 

 other station on the opposite side of the continent. 



The death at Ujiji is announced, of the French explorer, 

 Abbe Debaize. The Abbe left Paris in March, 1S7S, with a 

 subsidy of 10,000 francs from the French Government, to cross 

 Africa, from Zanzibar to the west coast. He reached Lake 

 Tanganyika in March of last year, after an unusually rapid and 

 favourable journey. He intended to establish depots at the 

 north end of the lake, and at the mouth of Stanley's Aruwimi, 

 to explore the country between the lake and the Albert Nyanza, 

 and the region to the north of the Congo. He had started on 

 his journey, but was so badly treated by his followers, that he 

 returned downcast to Ujiji, where he died. The Abbe was well 

 qualified by his scientific knowledge and his experience for the 

 task he undertook, and his death is a real loss to the scientific 

 exploration of Africa. 



Mr. Stanley, according to information received by the 

 Lisbon Geographical Society, had reached the last fall of the 

 Congo at Yallala, and was preparing the installation of the first 

 Belgian commercial station on the right bank of that river. 



Messrs. Sonnenschein and Allen have just published a 

 " Primer of the Industrial Geography of Great Britain and 

 Ireland," by Mr. G. Phillips Bevan. The Primer is likely to 

 prove useful not only as a supplement to the ordinary school 

 text-books, but to all who desire to have a knowledge of the 

 geographical distribution of our multifarious industries. 



The Irkutsk mail informs us that M. Potanin returned on 

 December 13 to that city. The results of his expedition are 

 most important. He has thrown a quite new light on the geo- 

 graphy and ethnography of North-western Mongolia. His 

 assistant, M. Adrianoff, has made important geological explora- 

 tions and obtained an interesting collection of ethnographical 

 photographs. Besides, M. Orloff, who was sent to meet M. 

 Potanin, has made several important surveys. 



Perthes, of Gotha, has issued on one large sheet an in- 

 geniously tabulated and useful index to all the maps that have 

 appeared in Peterma tin's Mitlheilungm, from its first publication 

 in 1S55, down to the present. The index has been designed by 

 Herr Bruno Hassenstein. 



GEOLOGICAL NOTES 



Geological Survey of the United States. — Mr. 



Clarence King, the Director of the new Survey, has prepared 



his estimates for the appropriation of the .^330,000 voted by 



Congress for the year ending June 30, 1SS0. They show gene- 



rally how he proposes to distribute the work under his superin- 

 tendence : — 



Geological survey of iron and coal resources of public 



domain §30,020 



Extending observations on coal and iron into old 



States 20,000 



Survey of agricultural geology on public lauds of Mis- 

 sissippi Basin 25,000 



Geological survey of gold and silver in Division of 



Rocky Mountains 3S,ooo 



Geological survey of gold and silver in Division of 



Great Basin 35,oco 



Survey of geological structure of public lands in Missis- 

 sippi Basin 25,000 



Survey of geological structure and classification of 



public lands of Rocky Mountains 30,000 



Survey of geological structure and classification of 



public lands in Colorado Basin 40,000 



Survey of geological structure and classification of 



public lands in Great Basin 30,000 



Survey of geological structure and classification of 



public lands in Pacific 25,000 



$330,000 



It will be observed that this allotment of the funds quite con- 

 firms the view lately expressed in our columns (Nature, vol. 

 xxi. p. 197) as to the "scare " which some of the geologists in 

 the east have experienced on the subject of a proposed invasion 

 of the old States by the forces of the new Survey. We ven- 

 tured to point out that in the west Mr. King and his 

 associates had such a vast and untouched field for their 

 labours that they were not very likely to betake themselves to the 

 well-beaten geological pathways of the Eastern States. Mr. 

 King in the foregoing estimates proposes to devote only §20,000 

 for "extending observations on coal and iron into old States." 

 Assuming that this item is inserted in good faith (and surely 

 there is no reason to do otherwise), it must be regarded by im- 

 partial outsiders as reasonable and moderate. Probably the 

 original intention was to secure power to prolong investigations 

 from the public domain into surrounding States where this was 

 require 1 by the necessities of the service. No one will deny the 

 propriety of such a provision. Even if the observations were to be 

 extended into the Eastern States, so long as this was done merely 

 with a view to acquiring information and experience to guide the 

 field -operations in the Territories, it would surely still be within 

 the province of any truly national Survey. That any serious 

 attempt is contemplated to carry on ordinary geological survey- 

 ing in the old States is simply inconceivable. So that again, in 

 spite of their renewed protests, the geologists of the East may 

 be urged to believe that they have the game in their own hands, 

 and that they have no ground for alarm that the rights either of 

 States or of private individuals will eventually suffer. 



Catalogue of Official Reports of American Geo- 

 logical Surveys. — Mr. Frederick Prime, one of the assistant 

 geologists in the Geological Survey of Pennsylvania, has just 

 published, in the Transactions of the American Institute of 

 Mining Engineers, a most useful catalogue of all the official 

 reports issued up to the present time by the various geological 

 Surveys of the States and Territories of the American Union, 

 and of British North America. It thus forms a compendious 

 guide to the official sources of information regarding almost all 

 parts of North America, with the names of the authors and dates 

 of publication. 



The Primeval Cell. — Some twelve years ago the petrc- 

 graphers and mineralogists of Germany were a good deal 

 exercised in their minds by an escapade of one of their number 

 —himself a very able mineralogist — who announced his discovery 

 of a new microscopic fauna and flora in crystalline eruptive 

 rocks, such as basalt and melaphyre. Of course, the presumed 

 organic structures were repudiated by naturalists, and still remain 

 characteristic products of the mineral kingdom. Another vagary 

 of a similar kind has lately been perpetrated by Dr. Otto Hahn, 

 who publishes a thin volume with a large series of plates, under 

 the title of " Die Urzelle," in which he shows that everybody 

 before him has unaccountably misunderstood the much discussed 

 Eozoon, that it is neither a mineral nor an anima structure, but 

 belongs to the vegetable kingdom ! In the eozoonsl limestones 

 he finds numerous primaeval sea-weeds, which, with paternal 

 fondness, he takes care to have duly named. What a pity that 



