872 
the Bachelor of Arts in medicine, prepara- 
tory to two years of strictly professional 
‘work with the degree of Doctor of Medicine. 
When such training as this is demanded 
of all aspirants to professional practice we 
shall have uniformly well educated men in 
the professions, and not until then. 
S. W. WI .isron. 
UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS. 
CURRENT NOTES ON PHYSIOGRAPHY. 
THE REGION ABOUT LAKES TANGANYIKA AND 
NYASSA. 
THE origin by down-faulting of the linear 
depression holding Lake Tanganyika has 
been advocated by Suess in ‘ Das Antlitz 
der Erde,’ and popularized by Gregory in 
his book on the ‘Great Rift Valley.’ An 
article by J. E. 8. Moore on the Physio- 
graphical Features of the Nyasa and Tan- 
ganyika Districts (London Geogr. Journ., 
X., 1897, 289-300) gives additional notes 
of value. The south end of Tanganyika 
is enclosed on the west by a 2,000-foot sand- 
stone escarpment, whence the plateau 
country slopes gradually westward to the 
shallow basin of Lake Bangweolo, whose 
waters are only ten or twelve feet deep; 
the plateau being broken by mountains of 
granite and gneiss which rise like islands 
aboveasea. Hast of southern Tanganyika 
the country rises gradually; hence this part 
of the lake basin seems to lie in the depres- 
sion between two tilted fault blocks, rather 
than in a graben. Passing southeast, the 
north end of Nyasa is found to lie between 
sandstone escarpments on either side, the 
enclosing uplands consisting of an uneven 
crystalline foundation whose depressions 
are occupied by sandstones and conglomer- 
ates like those around Tanganyika; this 
part of Nyassa is, therefore, regarded as a 
down-faulted rift. But going on to the 
south end of the lake and to its extension 
in Lake Shirwa, Moore finds nothing sug- 
gestive of great faults or rift valleys. Lofty 
SCIENCE. 
(N.S. Von. VI. No. 154. 
granitic masses, with axes about north and 
south, enclose wide areas of waste slopes 
and alluvial flats, whose central depres- 
sions are occupied by malarial swamps and 
shallow lakes. The outflow by Shire river 
descends to lower plains through the Mur- 
chison cataracts. 
It does not seem to be fully proved that 
the depressions between the granitic ranges 
were not produced by dislocations, although 
it is true that, in the absence of the heavy 
sandstones, faulting is not easily demon- 
strated. It may also be questioned whether 
the existence of the depressions ‘now more 
or less completely filled up with decomposed 
granite and gneiss annually swept down into 
them from the hills by the prolonged tropical 
rain’ prove that they ‘have undoubtedly at 
one time been covered by water.’ It may 
be added that the rains are not, properly 
speaking, ‘ tropical;’ Dove having advisedly 
limited that term to the rains produced 
where the trade winds ascend mountainous 
slopes; the rains here are subequatorial, 
dependent not on the trade winds, but on 
the annual migration of the meteorological 
equator from the geographical equator. 
BRUCKNER’S ERDRINDE UND IHRE FORMEN. 
Tue fifth edition of the standard Allge- 
meine Erdkunde, originally by Hann, 
Hochstetter and Pokorny, has for its sec- 
ond part a volume of 368 large pages on 
‘Die feste Erdrinde und ihre Formen,’ by 
Professor E. Brtickner, of Berne. It is a 
thorough and comprehensive work, but in 
its inclusion of Geology it illustrates how 
far Erdkunde departs from its supposed 
English equivalent, Geography. A quarter 
of the book is given to geology, including 
petrography, structure and stratigraphy 
half of the pages treat of the processes that 
determine surface form, and the remainder 
are devoted to the forms themselves. In- 
ternal processes produce volcanoes, earth- 
quakes, shore changes and deformations. 
