July 13, 1SS3.] 



SCIENCE. 



53 



Chaycrjm, and Pichupichu. eighteen to nineteen thou- 

 sand feet in height. On the pampa of La Joya (4,100 

 feet) he saw comitU'ss hillocks of pure, sharp sand 

 (medanos), in half-moon form, with the curve to 

 the west or windward (see Soiexoe, i. 488). A 

 mirage gave these white hills the appearance of drift- 

 ice in an arctic sea. — {Deutsch. geogr. hliiUer, vi. 

 188:?, 105. ) w. M. D. [53 



Colombia. — R. B. White, for several years resi- 

 dent in Colombia, and a companion of Stiibel and 

 Keiss in some of tlieir expeditions, furnishes a sum- 

 mary account of the more attractive parts of this 

 republic, and of its productions, and chance of devel- 

 opment. Several of the rivers that flow northwai'd 

 between parallel ranges of the Cordillera are navi- 

 gable for small steamers for many miles into the in- 

 terior, opening districts well adapted to .agriculture, 

 and well supplied with timber and mineral products. 

 Above the low plains the climate is healthy. A good 

 share of the worUl's platinum supply is obtained 

 from the upper valley of the San Juan, and gold 

 occurs in proKt.ible quantity in many of the river- 

 gravels. Brief mention is made of an ascent of the 

 snowy volcano, Purac^; and the extensive view from 

 the Cerro Munehique, nearly ten thousand feet high, 

 west of Popayan, is highly praised. The geological 

 observations on the origin of mountain .ind valley 

 form do not carry conviction, and (he frequent men- 

 tion of volcanic upheaval and valleys of fracture re- 

 mind one of the theories of fifty years ago. — (Proc. 

 roy. geogr. soc, v. 1883, 240.) w. m. d. [54 



UMca.) 



The Kongo. — Dr. Pechuel-Loesche, a member of 

 the German- African expedition to Loango in 1873-76, 

 and later in charge at Stanley Pool while Stanley 

 went to Europe, recently read an address on the 

 Kongo and the neighboring mountains of western 

 Africa before the German geographical congress at 

 Frankfort. The river is remarkable for the rapids 

 all along its course, and especially in its narrow 

 passage through the mountains below Stanley Pool, 

 where it falls nine hundred and twenty-eight feet in 

 gome three hundred and forty miles. Of the several 

 falls in this part of its course, only one is vertical, 

 that of Isangila, with a height of sixteen feet. There 

 are two periods of high water, with a rise of twenty 

 feet, when the falls disappear in a uniform rushing 

 flow. The water rises from September to January, 

 falls from .January to March, attains its greatest 

 height in the rainy months (April and May), and its 

 lowest level in July and August. Many of the 

 mountain brooks have cut deep channels, and join 

 the main stream on a level ; but some of the larger 

 rivers of the interior, flowing over horizontal rocks, 

 have not cut their way so deeply, and, on joining the 

 Kongo, form cataracts. Thus the Luenga falls 

 three hundred feet, and the Luvubi five hundred 

 feet. (This, if correctly reported, is certainly a 

 very abnormal arrangement.) The mountain belt is 

 about two hundred miles wide, rising from a sloping 

 plain at about one thousand feet to rounded and 

 monotonous elevations with a maximum of three 

 thousand feet. The higher land is grassy, with small 



trees and apparently leafless bushes : the more lux- 

 uriant growth of lofty trees and palms is hidden in 

 the valleys. It is these deep and steep-sided valleys 

 that make the rather open upland diflicult to 

 traverse. Near the river, the natives have destroyed 

 all the forest-trees, either by burning or cutting. The 

 villages are built on high and bare summits. Dr. 

 Pechuel-Loesche regarded the Makoko (ruler of the 

 stream), with whom de Brazza had made a treaty two 

 years ago (Sciknce, i. 7!)), as a local ruler of no general 

 authority. The Makoko's son had reported that his 

 father had ceded no land to de Brazza, and that he 

 had no French flag in his possession. There are four 

 Makokos in this region ; and none of them has a right 

 of precedence over the others, or any title to be 

 sovereign of the Bateke population of this part of 

 the Kongo. — (Proc. roy. geogr. soc, v. 1883, 286.) 

 w. >i. D. [55 



The muatiamvo of the southern Kongo basin. 

 — Max Bucbner, the fourth European who lias been 

 in this region in the last two centuries, spent half 

 a year at the residence of the ' niuati.amvo,' or king 

 (Science, 1. 19), and reports on the peculiar form 

 of his government. The kingdom on the southern 

 side of the Kongo basin, the special field of the 

 German-African explorations, includes an area about 

 as large as Germany. Its population can hardly 

 exceed two millions, and its power cannot compare 

 with that of Mtesa's country, farther east, where 

 an army of a hundred thousand men can take the 

 field. Here the army is not more than one thousand 

 strong at the highest ; and Buchner says he could 

 go where he chose with fifty European soldiers, 

 if they were not attacked by that more dreaded 

 enemy, the African fever. And yet, through a large 

 part of south-western Africa, the muatiamvo is the 

 greatest native power. The most notable peculiarity 

 of the government consists in the presence of a 

 second high authority besides the muatiamvo, 

 namely, the ' lukokessa,' or queen : she is not the 

 wife of the king, who has some sixty wives of his 

 own, but is free and independent of him, having her 

 own chief consort, the ' shamoana,' and numerous 

 frequently ch.anging husbands of lower order. Buch- 

 ner traces the origin of this form of government, 

 and gives a list of thirteen mualiaravos, down to 

 Shanana or Naoesh-a-kat, the present king, and de- 

 scribes the different parts of the kingdom and its 

 neighboring states. — {DeuUche geogr. bldlter., vi. 

 1883,56.) w. M. D. [56 



BOTANY. 



Pollination of Rutaceae. — Urban has studied the 

 adaptations for fertilization in a considerable number 

 of species of this heterogeneous order, using living 

 material at the Berlin botanic garden. As few of the 

 genera have been previously studied in this respect, 

 a rather full translation of his tabulated summary 

 is given. 



I. MOXOCLINOUS SPECIES. 



A. With dichogainous {protandrous) flowers. 

 1. Nutation successively places the dehiscent an- 

 thers at the point which the receptive stigma occu- 

 pies later. 



