February 23, 1883.] 



SCIENCE. 



79 



the Turkoman country, before the Royal geographical 

 society last November, was the occasion of an inter- 

 esting discussion on the old question of the meeting 

 of Russian and English forces in western Asia. Sir 

 H. Rawlinson gave high praise to Lessar's worlc as 

 novel and accurate. The ' great mountain chain ' 

 which the optimists contended would protect India 

 turns out to be a "paltry line of sandstone hills, not 

 1,000 feet in height, which could be crossed by a car- 

 riage-road in a coujile of hours, and which would 

 crumble before the touch of a Russian railway-engi- 

 neer." He thought the present desert into which the 

 Tedjend and Murgab flow was formerly a lake, known 

 to the ancients as the Aria Palus, from which there 

 was water-way to the Caspian. An important aid in 

 the disappearance of the lake was probably the diver- 

 sion of a branch of the Oxus from it into the Aral. He 

 admitted that recent Russian conquest had done much 

 in stopping robbery and suppressing the slave-trade, 

 but thought that Afghanistan was ' beyond the scope 

 of her influence and action,' and hoped that Lessar's 

 project of a railway from Askabad to Herat might 

 not be realized. Sir Bartle Frere thought the sooner 

 the English railway-engineers pressed forward from 

 India to meet the Russians, the farther off would be 

 the day when the military engineers would meet. 

 Sir H. Norman and Sir R. Temple thought the meet- 

 ing would not come in their time, and that construc- 

 tion of railways across Afghanistan by either outside 

 power would be difiicult, and would be prevented by 

 international agreements. — (Proc. roy. geoyr. soc, 

 1883, 12.) w. M. D. [224 



(, Africa.) 



Stanley and Brazza on the Kongo. — The dis- 

 pute between these explorers concerning the posses- 

 sion of certain trading-posts on the Kongo illustrates 

 the activity of modern African exploration, and its 

 commercial inportance. Brazza made a treaty in 

 1880, with the peojjle on the west bank of the Kongo 

 about Stanley Pool ; whose chief, Makoko, put him- 

 self under French protection, and ceded a strip of 

 land on the west shore of the Pool for the establish- 

 ment of a trading-post, named Brazzaville. The 

 explorer concludes that a railroad must be built to 

 this station, and, after very insufficient examination 

 of the route, decides that it should leave the coast 

 near Loango, and extend almost directly eastward up 

 the Kuilu and its branch the Niari, and over a low 

 mountain range to the Kongo, about two hundred 

 and fifty miles. 



The expedition from which Stanley returned last 

 year was fitted out in 1879, chiefly by the liberality of 

 the king of Belgium, with the object of opening a 

 free way for trade up the Kongo to inner Africa. 

 The most difficult part of the undertaking was the 

 building of a road from Vivi, j«st below the first falls 

 of the Kongo, 230 miles up the valley to Stanley Pool, 

 above which the river is again navigable ; and after 

 many difficulties this was completed in 1881. During 

 this work, near the end of 1880, Stanley met Brazza 

 coming down the valley ; but the latter said nothing 

 about his treaty with Makoko. Six months later 

 Stanley reached the Pool, and was at first well treated 

 by the natives ; but soon such startling reports about 

 him were spread by Malamine, whom Brazza had left 

 there to construct the trading-station, that he was 

 forced to retire under the protection of a friendly 

 chief on the southern shore of the Kongo. He de- 

 scended the left bank to Mandjanga, where he col- 

 lected his boxes and cases, and returned to the Pool. 

 The station-house of Leopoldville was finished there 

 in February, 1882; and then Stanley completed his 

 trip by a long excursion up the Kongo in a small 



steamboat that he had brought up over his road, 

 reaching a point 700 miles above the river-mouth. 



Stanley condemns Brazza's action in claiming the 

 country about the Pool for France ; because he was 

 sent out by the International African association, 

 and had no right to acquire possessions for France 

 alone. Brazza asserts that he was provided with a 

 hundred thousand francs from the French govern- 

 ment, and that he had no other support. {Ausland, 

 1882,861,894.) w. M. D. [225 



Abyssinia. — In a short resume of his trip from 

 the Red Sea to Lake Tana (Tsana) and back, by the 

 way of Adua, G. Rohlfs makes frequent mention of 

 the small population now in this country, in spite of 

 its being well enough watered, supporting a sufficient 

 plant-growth, and not appearing unhealtliy: it seems 

 to result from the frequent wars that have latterly 

 been fought with the Egyptians. Rohlfs criticises 

 the map about Adua by Schimper, published in the 

 Zeitschrift der gesellsch. f. erdkunde (Berlin), vol. 

 iv., as absolutely valueless. The article is accom- 

 panied by a valuable map, prepared by Hassenstein, 

 of the Abyssinian plateau, showing the routes of 

 its various explorers. — {Peterm. mitth., 1882, 401.) 

 w. M. D. [226 



(.Pacific Ocean.) 

 Tahiti. — R. Beltrau y Rozpide begins a description 

 of this group of islands, with an account of their dis- 

 covery and synonymy, and a brief description of the 

 several islands. Tahiti, the largest, has an area 1,042 

 sq. kil., with peaks rising to 2,236 met. (Orohena), 

 2,104 (PitoUti), and 2,064 {Aorai). Although of vol- 

 canic rock, none of the summits have crater form. 

 In a deep valley lies Lake Uaihiria, at an elevation 

 of 431 met., without visible outlet: it is considered 

 either a landslip or a crater lake. Around the shore 

 of the island is a fertile and well-cultivated plain, 

 for which the following data are the chief climatic 

 factors, based mostly on observations by Harcouet at 

 Papeite in 1878. The mean temperature is 2(i° C. ; 

 the daily variation is about three degrees, and the 

 annual about twelve, ranging from an average of 19° 

 and a minimum of 15° in June, July, and August, 

 to an average of 31° or 32° from December to March. 

 The sea-water has an almost constant temperature 

 of 28° or 29°, the streams from the momitains vary 

 from 20° to 23°, and in the elevated interior the ther- 

 mometer sometimes falls to 8°. The barometric mean 

 is 759.8.5 mm., with a maximum of 764 and a mini- 

 mum of 756.9 mm. The winds are generally from 

 the east, but sometimes come from south-east or 

 south-west, and then bring rain. At night there is, 

 as a rule, a cool breeze from the interior. Rain is 

 heaviest on the south-east; but the measures were 

 taken on the other side of the island, and showed 91 

 rainy days, and a fall of 1,200 mm. in the wet season 

 from December to April, accompanied by low press- 

 ure, calms, and gusts, and 199 mm. of rain on 23 

 days of the dry season from April to December. The 

 rains are much less frequent and heavy on the coast 

 than in the interior, where they produce high floods 

 in the steep valleys. Among the peculiarities of the 

 island's fauna may be mentioned the climbing crab 

 (Birgus latro), which climbs the cocoa-palms to cut 

 off and drop the young fruit, then descends, and 

 carries the nuts to the shore, where it breaks and eats 

 them. Further details of the flora and fauna are 

 given. The population of the group was estimated 

 about 100,000 in the last century, but this was doubt- 

 less incorrect. More trustworthy counts about 1820 

 gave 10,000 to 15,000; in 1848, 9,967; in 1857, 7,200; in 

 1862, 10,147; and the last, in 1879, 10,978. — (Bol. soc. 

 fjeogr. Madrid, xiii. 1882, 241, 3S1.) w. M. D. |227 



