48 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. I., No. 2. 



British co-operation in arctic meteorological 

 and magnetic research. — Letters have recently 

 been received from Capt. H. P. Dawson, R.A., who 

 has been appointed to undertake the work of estab- 

 lishing one of the chain of circunipolar observing 

 stations in the scheme of the international com- 

 mission, originally suggested by the late Lieut. C. 

 Weyprecht. During the past summer Capt. Dawson, 

 with two observers and an artificer, started for the 

 Hudson Bay Territory with the idea of establishing 

 a station at Fort Eae or Fort Providence on Great 

 Slave Lake. Funds for the expedition to the amount 

 of $12, .500 were guaranteed by the government, $.5,000 

 by the Royal society, and the Canadian government 

 has since added the sum of $4,000. It is supposed 

 that this will suffice to keep the party in the field for 

 at least two seasons. When last heard from, all were 

 well, though somewhat late in reaching their destina- 

 tion. It was not certain at last accounts whether 

 one of the ijosts above mentioned, or old Fort Simp- 

 son, would be decided upon ; the last-mentioned offer- 

 ing several advantages not shared by the others, though 

 on some accounts less desirable. — w. H. n. [125 



{South America.) 



Early exploration of the Amazon. — The reprint 

 of P. Texeira's voyage up the Amazon (1637-1638) is 

 continued. — (Bol. soc. geogr. Madrid, xiii., 1882, 

 266-275.) w. M. D. . [126 



Bolivian table-land. — The plateau southward 

 from Lake Titicaca was explored and surveyed dur- 

 ing a part of 1SS2, by J. B. Minchin, for the Bolivian 

 government. Its altitude is 12,000 or 13,000 feet, 

 with generally level surface, broken by isolated hills 

 and smaller ranges. On the east, the Cordillera Real, 

 or main chain of the Andes, is composed chiefly of 

 stratified rocks, rising to great heights, and culmi- 

 nating in Sorata and Illimani. On the west, the 

 Coast Range is largely volcanic, with some vents still 

 active. Both ranges are metalliferous. The eastern 

 range has copious rains and an ample plant-growth; 

 the western is dryer and almost barren. The Desa- 

 guadero, or outlet of Lake Titicaca, flows along the 

 eastern side of the plateau, over low, flat land, very 

 boggy in the wet season, into Lake Poopo or Aulla- 

 gas, about 50 by 15 miles, but with low banks and 

 variable area. From its south-western angle an out- 

 let, the Laca-Ahuira, carries off what is not lost by 

 evaporation. This stream flows underground for 

 three miles of its course, and farther west is lost in 

 the Salinas de Coipasa, which receives several other 

 rivers, some fresh (Llauca, Isluga), some brackish 

 (Sabaya, Cariquima) : these salinas are about 400 

 square miles in area, and of dazzling white surface. 

 A little to the south-east begin the great Salinas de 

 Garcimendoza, with an area of 4,000 square miles, 

 a white and perfectly level sheet of salt, three or 

 four feet thick; in the dry season it can be crossed on 

 horseback. The former area of the lake from wliicli 

 these Salinas remain is estimated at 20,000 square 

 miles; its old shore-line is marked by a persistent 

 level calcareous incrustation, 200 feet above Lake 

 Poopo. — {Proc. geogr. soc. Lond., Nov., 1882, map.) 



W. M. D. [127 



(Europe.) 

 Southern Russia. — J. G-arnier gives an interest- 

 ing account of the region about the river Donetz, 

 visited at the end of 1881. Rocks of the coal-meas- 

 ures give a gentle relief to the surface, the greatest 

 difference found between valley and hilltop being 

 only 150 met. ; but the surrounding country is more 

 even, a part of the great plain extending to the Arctic 

 Ocean. The climate is consequently variable; very 

 cold and snowy in the winter season, which begins 



in October. The rivers and the Sea of Azoff are 

 frozen about four months. A quick change gives 

 warm weather in May, and a fresh vegetation springs 

 ujo ; but the summers are so dry and hot that the 

 harvests often fail. Irrigation cannot be practised, . 

 as the streams run in valleys 40 or 50 met. below the 

 general surface. Roads are very bad, except when 

 smoothed over with snow. The peasants pitied the 

 French people who had some winters without snow! 

 Towns are few, and the population is so sparse that 

 the fields are often cultivated only once in three 

 years. Trees are absent, except occasionally on the 

 river-bottoms, and wood is too dear to be used for 

 fviel. The absence of forests is the result, according 

 to Le Play, of the severe climate; Hommaire de Hell 

 says tree-roots cannot penetrate the compact soil ; the 

 Cossacks themselves believe the trees have been cut 

 away and not replanted. In spite of many unfavora- 

 ble conditions, years of good harvest yield immense 

 quantities of grain for expoi'tation. Coal forms an 

 undeveloped resource of the country. It was discov- 

 ered in the time of Peter the Great, and has lately 

 been studied under the direction of Helmersen ; but 

 in spite of its great quantity and excellent quality, it 

 was hardly worked till after the Crimean war; then 

 the better steam navigation of the Black Sea, and 

 the beginning of railroad construction in Southern 

 Russia, gave a new impulse to mining, and in 1881 

 1,600,000 tons were raised. Still English coal is found 

 in all the ports of the Black Sea. This is largely 

 because the coal from tlie Donetz mines has no good 

 harbor for export, for the Sea of Azoff is but 4 met. 

 deep at its entrance, the Strait of Kertch; and at 

 Taganrog, its most important port, now connected by 

 rail with the mines, vessels drawing only 3.5 or 4 

 met. must anchor 25 kil. from the shore, and load 

 or discharge by double transfer to cart and lighter. 

 Although possible with wheat, tills is too expensive 

 for coal. The harbors might be much improved 

 by dredging. — {Bull. soc. geogr. Paris, 1882, 498.) 



W. M. D. [128 



(Axia.) 



Across Eastern Gobi. — Hermann Mandl, a 

 young German, who went to try his fortunes in the 

 East, spent two years learning Chinese at Peking, and 

 was then engaged, in 1880, as interpreter by Gen. Zo- 

 zung-tang, who was about to lead an army across the ' 

 desert to Hami in view of possible difhculty with 

 Russia concerning the occupation of Kitldja. Lieut. 

 G. Kreitner, wlio had been as far as Ansifan two 

 years before, gives a sketch-map and account of 

 Mandl's expedition from Ansifan across Gobi to 

 Hami, and compares it with the description of the 

 same region in 1875 by Major Sosnowski [Journ. roy. 

 geogr. soc. Lond., 1877, 160). Ansifan is in 95° 56' 

 50" long. E. of Qr., and 40° 3Ii' N. lat., at an 

 elevation of 1,144 met., on a fertile plain watered by 

 the Sula-ho, which rises in the snowy Nan-san on the 

 south, and flows westward into the desert, ending in 

 the reported Kara-nor. The city suffered greatly in 

 the rebellion of 1868, as did many neighboring towns, 

 and has now only a thousand inhabitants, many of 

 its houses being empty. Kua-Tchou, some twenty 

 miles west-south-west, was at this time completely 

 destroyed, though it still appears on most maps as an 

 important place. On the 26th of July, 1880, Mandl 

 left Ansifan. His party travelled at night to avoid 

 the excessive heat, — the thermometer had registered 

 107° F. before starting, — and was eleven days on 

 the way, averagiiig fifty miles to a march. The loose 

 sand of the flat desert, and the rough stony paths 

 over tlie occasional hills, which sometimes rise 120 

 feet above the plain, made travelling extremely dif- 



