March n, 1880] 



NATURE 



455 



GEOGRAPHICAL NOTES 



At the meeting of the Geographical Society on Monday 

 evening, Sir II. Rawlinson read a letter just received from Mr. 

 Thomson, the leader of the Ea^t African Expedition. Mr. 

 Thomson wrote on November 9 from Fambete, at the south end 

 of Lake Tanganyika, the shore; of which he first reached on 

 November 4, and he gives a brief account of his journey from 

 the head of Lake Nyas a. After leaving the country of Konde, 

 the party came on the steep face of the great African plateau, 

 rising from 3,300 to 6,500 feet in the country of Nyika. At 

 first they travelled over highlands at an elevation of 7,000 feet, 

 the highest point reached being 8, 1S0 feet on the Munboya 

 range. The land then descends through a somewhat barren 

 region to 3,300 feet, in about long. 32° 45'. On the west Nyika 

 is bounded by the Chingambo Mountains, which have a pre- 

 cipitous eastern face, but a gradual slope away to the west. 

 These mountains Mr. Thomson places in long 32 45', hit. 9° 5'- 

 The rivulets of the Nyika region drain down to the Lukuviro, a 

 few south, and others north-west to Lake Hikwa, a lake now 

 heard of for the first time. Mr. Thomson, on the other side of 

 the Chingambo Mountains, entered the small country of Inyam- 

 wanga, which appears to be covered almost entirely with forests, 

 and slopes west to its boundary, the Mkaliza, a stream flowing 

 south in about long. 32" 20'. Here the country of Mambwe 

 was reached, consisting alternately of pasture and forest land, 

 and rising to a height of 5,000 feet at Kitimba's capital. The 

 same elevation continues through the hilly Ulungu country to 

 Lake Tanganyika. Mr. Thomson also furnishes some notes as 

 to the hydrography of Mambwe, the northern part of which is a 

 great water-shed for streams. He w as to proceed northwards 

 on November 10, along the west side of the lake, and a telegram 

 has been received from Dr. Kirk, stating that he had left Ujiji, on 

 the eastern shore, on January 16, on his return to Uguha, If he 

 had not already done so, he would then, 110 doubt, carry out his 

 intention of examing the Lukuga Creek for thirty miles, and 

 afterwards striking south through the still unexplored region in 

 that quarter. Mr. Thomson will next pass between the two 

 lakes again and reach the coast at Kilwa. After this very inter- 

 esting piece of new geography, Lieut. G. F. Temple, R.N., 

 read a paper descriptive of a voyage on the coasts of Norway 

 and Lapland, undertaken chiefly in the interests of hydrography, 

 and which appears to have had u-eful results. 



The St. Petersburg Society of Naturalists proposes to send an 

 important expedition for the exploration of the fishing on the 

 Murmanian coast, and of the fauna of the western parts of the 

 White Sea. Several professors will take part in this expedition, 

 which will be under the direction of Prof. Wagner. 



The Rev. -Father Carrie, Superior of the Roman Catholic 

 Mission to the Congo, writing from Landana on December 3 

 last, gives some information regarding Mr. Stanley's Congo 

 Expedition. The personnel of Mr. Stanley, the Father writes, 

 is very numerous ; besides Mr. Stanley, there is a superintendent, 

 an engineer, a captain, several mechanics, carpenters, &c, in all 

 twenty whites of different nations— Belgians, Americans, English, 

 Italians, Danes. The expedition has recently been joined"by a 

 French naturalist, M. Protche. Many of the Europeans had 

 already succumbed to fever and the hardships of the work 

 involved. The following of blacks consisted of about 100 men, 

 Arabs or natives of Sierra Leone and the Congo. There are five 

 email steamers and several other boats, carts, and other ma- 

 chinery for land transport, wooden houses ready to erect, &c. 

 Father Carrie was taken by steamer to Noki, the last European 

 settlement on the river. Thence in a canoe the Father was taken 

 further up, to Vivi, the first station of Mr. Stanley's expedition, 

 on the right bank of the river, about 130 miles from the coast. 

 Four or five miles further up the first of the Yellala Cataracts is 

 met with. When the Father arrived Mr. Stanley was away 

 among the mountains in the direction of the great village of Vivi. 

 M. van Schandel told the Father that Mr. Stanley set out on his 

 excursions and returned without giving notice to any one. The 

 traveler soon returned, "exhausted by fatigue and covered with 

 dust and perspiration." While waiting the end of the rainy 

 season, Mr. Stanley is solidly establishing himself in his first 

 station, the basis of all future operations, and maturing his plans 

 for overcoming the difficulties to be met with. The.e difficulties 

 are so great that the Father thinks it will take years before the 

 termination of the terrible chain of mountains can be reached 

 and the second station established at Stanley Pool, 200 miles 

 distant. Mr. Stanley's intention, we are told, is to ascend the 



Congo to the Lualaba, where he hopes to find his Arab friend, 

 Tibu Tib. Then he will explore the western part of the Congo, 

 as well as the country on its two banks, attempting, at the same 

 time, to attract the ivory trade to Mboma. 



The Daily News Lisbon correspondent telegraphs that Ivens 

 and Capello, who have arrived at that city, have explored and 

 studied a vast area and obtained important data for constructing 

 a map of the province of Angola. They traversed the bush of 

 Quioco, passed beyond the River Quango in the direction of 

 Chicapa, and determined the roads to Muatay and Anvo, to the 

 bush of Lobuco, Pesside, and Luba. They ascertained the 

 sources of the rivers Quango, Cassai, and Loando, and descended 

 the last-named to the seventh parallel. The Quango has exten- 

 sive rapids. The sources of these rivers are contiguous. The 

 explorers bring many observations — geographical, meteorologi- 

 cal, and magnetic, and also on the African fauna and flora — and 

 they will publish these ob?ervations. 



Wurster and Co., of Zurich, the publishers of Kaltbrunner's 

 "Manuel du Voyageur," noticed by us on its publication, 

 request all interested in scientific geography, both societies and 

 individuals, to forward a statement of any desiderata whereby 

 the work would be improved as a manual of scientific instruction 

 for travellers of all nationalities. Communications should be 

 addressed to M. Kaltbrunner, Bureau International des Postes, 

 Zurich. 



Mr. J. H. Riley, one of the agents of the China Inland 

 Mission at Chungking, in Szechuen, in company with Mr. Moll- 

 man, of the British and Foreign Bible Society, at the end of last 

 July, paid a visit to Ngo-mi-Shan and the borders of the Lolo 

 country. The mountain in question is one of the loftiest in the 

 province, and is remarkable for its Buddhist temples ; the 

 travellers spent some days on it, and experienced a notable 

 decrease in temperature, for, though they were there in mid- 

 August, they found a fire necessary. From Ngo-mi they went 

 westward to Ngo-pien-ting, about three or four miles from 

 Tsuan-chi-kow, a small town on the boundary of the Lolo 

 country, into which they were unable to penetrate ow-ing to the 

 opposition of the officials. They succeeded, however, in getting 

 a Lolo to return with them, so .that something will be learned 

 about these people. The men are described as fine, stalwart 

 fellows ; they wear cloaks, some made of coarse woollen, with a 

 fringe round the bottom, and some of a kind of felt. Mr. Riley 

 returned to Chunking, by way of Kia-ting-fu, at the end of Sep- 

 tember. 



In the voluminous blue book on Central Asia, which has 

 recently been published, will be found some information 

 respecting the Akhal-Tekkes, drawn up by M. Kuropatkine. 

 The Tekkes, as is known, are divided into two part-, the one, 

 the Akhal-Tekke, inhabiting the oasis at the foot of the 

 Kurendagh, and the other the oasis of Merv. The former oasis 

 is 150 versts in length, and 20 versts in breadth, containing 

 about 30,000 Kilritkas, half of which are at Geok-Tepe, practically 

 the capital of the race. The tribe is sub-divided into Takhtamy- 

 stchis and Utemystchis, the former being three times the more 

 numerous, as well as the more peaceable. The eastern vdlages, 

 from Varodji to Hiaurs, are governed by four Khans Beurm, 

 where the Utemystchis live, is on the west, and is ruled by a 

 Tykma-Sirdar. The Takhtamystchi settlements are under the 

 authority of Berdi Muvgad Khan, son of the powerful Nura 

 Verdi Khan. 



The March number of Pctermanti 's Miilheilungen contains 

 the conclusion of Dr. Junker's account of bis fruitful travels to the 

 west of the White Nile. This is followed by a paper by Dr. 

 Lehmann, of Halle, on the recent Danish attempts to penetrate 

 into the interior of Greenland, to which we have referred ; maps 

 accompany both these papers. The "Geographical Necrology" 

 ol 1879 is a long list, and is followed by an interesting memoir 

 of the late J. E. Wappaeus, by Prof. H. Wagner, of Konigsberg. 

 The monthly notes contain, as usual, many valuable items of 

 geographical information. 



The German savant, Herr Karl Bock, who was commissioned 

 by the Dutch Government to investigate the southern and eastern 

 districts of Borneo, has just completed his first tour in the eastern 

 part of Koti. 



Ntws just received announces the arrival at Kassala of the 

 two German African travellers, Dr. Mook and Baron Holz- 

 hausen. They crossed the desert from Suakin to Kassala in 

 fourteen days. Kassala, the residence of a pacha, is the centre 



