30 National Geographic Magazine. 
produce painful sores. A gruesome story is current in that region, 
about an enthusiastic English naturalist, who found specimens of 
these encamped in his feet, and concluded to take them home in that 
way, in order to observe the effect, but died of them before reach- 
ing England. All the party were afflicted with these pests, but were 
always fortunate enough to discover them and dig them out with 
the point of a knife before any bad results were experienced. The 
village of Contzacoalcos is prettily situated, the climate, especially 
in winter, is very agreeable and the river offers a commodious 
harbor, but as long as the insects are so unpleasant, few people 
will care to live there if they can avoid it. 
There have been directly determined by these various expedi- 
tions, about forty secondary meridians. Many more positions 
depend upon these, so they may be said to have made a large 
addition to our accurate knowledge of the earth’s surface. Tele- 
graphic facilities are being constantly extended, and as the Bureau 
of Navigation has now a very complete outfit for this work, 
which only needs occasional repairs, it is hoped that it may be 
kept up for some time in the future. 
