2 74 The National Geographic Magazine 



that had a strangely familiar look to 

 Professor Mills. They carried him back 

 to his boyhood days and reminded him 

 of the bones his pet dog used to gnaw. 

 So he began to look for the dog, and 

 he found him, the early Indian canine, 

 with a skull like a modern bull terrier's. 

 He, too, has gone to the happy hunting 

 grounds of his father. 



The Historical Society, of which Pro- 

 fessor Mills is curator, is interested in 

 preserving archaeological and historical 



relics to posterity. The famous Fort 

 Ancient, in Warren County, has been 

 set aside by the society's endeavors in 

 a park of 300 acres for public edifica- 

 tion. The great Serpent Mound, in 

 Adams County, has been similarly em- 

 parked. It is an embankment 1,300 

 feet long and three feet high, which is- 

 an eloquent monument to human en- 

 deavor, and as such should be preserved. 



H. C. Brown. 



THE GEOGRAPHY OF ABYSSINIA^ 



THE geography of Abyssinia is 

 now fairly well known as far as 

 the rivers and boundaries are 

 concerned, but there is a great deal to* 

 be learned regarding the Danakil coun- 

 try on the east and the country to the 

 south and southwest. The best maps 

 of the country are those made by the 

 Italians, but they are rather bewilder- 

 ing by the number of names they con- 

 tain of unimportant little places consist- 

 ing, perhaps, of three or four houses. 

 Unless a map is made on a very large 

 scale, say two inches to a mile, it is im- 

 possible to put in all the villages and 

 local names for the small streams, etc. 

 Many of the mountains are diiferently 

 called by the inhabitants of the various 

 slopes, and therefore names are not 

 always to be relied on. If the local 

 market towns are marked and those vil- 

 lages that possess a church, travelers 

 will have no difficulty in finding their 

 way about the country, and supplies can 

 generally be purchased' on market days 

 to enable them to proceed from one mar- 

 ket town to another. 



The Italian colony of Krithrea, which 

 bounds Abyssinia on the north, is well 

 surveyed, the heights of mountains. 



government stations, and plateaus have 

 all been determined, and statistics of 

 rainfall and temperature are kept and 

 published. Abyssinia is not at all a 

 difficult country to travel in on account, 

 of the very conspicuous landmarks and 

 the enormous extent of the landscape 

 that is visible from the various high 

 mountains. The atmosphere in the 

 highlands is wonderfully clear, and 

 enormous distances can be seen. From 

 Halai, in the north, the Semien Moun- 

 tains are visible on a clear day. Above 

 Wandach the Semien can also be seen, 

 and from Wandach the mountains to the 

 north of Ifat, and from there the moun- 

 tains round Cunni, in the Harar prov- 

 ince, are visible, and it might be possi- 

 ble, perhaps, to heliograph from one 

 point to the other. Part of Halai range 

 is also visible from Massowah on a clear 

 day. 



The climate in the highlands of Abjis- 

 sinia is superb, and it is only in the val- 

 leys that it is unhealthy and that mala- 

 rial fever is to be caught. There is a. 

 great discussion going on at present 

 about the mosquito, and it seems curious 

 to me, who have lived in so many un- 

 healthy parts of the East, that the at- 



*Frotti Modem Abyssinia, by Augustus B. Wilde. Pp. 506, with map and index. 



Methuen & Co., 1901. 



London : 



