February 15, 1889.] 



SCIENCE. 



12' 



thorough or complete training in any one subject, they have merely 

 made a certain amount of progress in a variety of branches ; and in 

 a large majority of cases this incomplete and disjointed instruction 

 is all the education that these children will ever receive. The 

 memorial protests against thus subordinating the primary-school 

 course to the grammar-school course and that which succeeds it. 

 The methods of examination and marking are unhesitatingly con- 

 demned, and ample evidence is quoted to sustain the charges. 



The awkward and incongruous nature of school-administration 

 seems to be very apparent. The Board of Education, the school 

 inspectors, the school trustees, and the assistant superintendents 

 have various and conflicting duties. It seems impossible to reach 

 any sound basis for progress until these methods of administration 

 are simplified and their efficiency increased. Then the improve- 

 ments necessary in the course of study may naturally follow. The 

 Public Education Society recognizes this fact, and therefore closes 

 the memorial with the suggestion that a special commission, which 

 shall include some members of recognized reputation and authority 

 an matters of education, be appointed to investigate the conditions 

 as they now exist in New York City, and to codify and simplify the 

 school law. We earnestly hope that this proposition of the society 

 will meet the approval of the Board of Education, and that the 

 necessary steps will be taken to carry it into effect. The com- 

 mittee on reform, to which the memorial was referred, is certainly 

 in sympathy with the Public Education Society. It now remains 

 to so press this subject upon the attention of the majority of the 

 Board of Education that the recommendations of the memorial 

 will be adopted. 



THE STANLEY EXPEDITION. 



The Moitvement geographique prints the various letters which 

 'have reached Brussels from Stanley Falls, and it is only now possi- 

 ble to understand somewhat clearly the course of Stanley's expedi- 

 tion. It will be remembered that Stanley sent a letter to Tippo- 

 Tip. About the end of last year Lieut. Alfred Baert, secretary of 

 Tippo-Tip at Stanley Falls Station, was obliged, on account of se- 

 vere illness, to leave his post. His reports supplement Stanley's 

 letter. 



Stanley says that the route from Yambuya on the Aruvimi to 

 Emin's province is excellent, and that provisions can be readily ob- 

 tained. He does not say how long it took to accomplish the dis- 

 tance from Yambuya to Lake Albert Nyanza, but he states that the 

 way back was accomplished in less than three months. 



On the Albert Nyanza he met Emin, who, according to his last 

 letters, was expecting to meet him there. The telegram of Dec. 

 23 stated that Stanley had left Emin near the Victoria. This fact 

 appeared surprising, as it implied that Emin had left his province. 

 This report appears to be due to a misunderstanding, Stanley say- 

 ing in his letter that he had left Emin on the Nyanza, referring 

 ■evidently to the Albert Nyanza, not to the Victoria Nyanza. After 

 having organized a caravan of one hundred and thirty Wangnana, 

 sixty-six men lent by Emin, and three soldiers, Stanley and his 

 ■four white companions — Nelson, Stairs, Parke, and Monterey 

 Jephson — left Emin on May 27, and returned to Yambuya by the 

 way they had come, in order to look after the rear guard left there 

 in charge of Major Barttelot, who was accompanied by Jamieson, 

 Bonny, Rose Troup, and Ward. On Aug. 17, Stanley, who com- 

 manded the vanguard, arrived at Banalya. This place, which has 

 so much puzzled geographers, is situated in Urenia, and is the 

 same place at which Bonny, the commander of the vanguard of 

 Barttelot, encamped on the bank of the Aruvimi. It is situated 

 about fourteen days above Yambuya, and seven or eight days 

 north-east of Stanley Falls. At Banalya, Barttelot was murdered 

 by one of his men about a month before Stanley's arrival. When 

 Stanley arrived. Bonny was still encamped there with part of the 

 men furnished to Barttelot by Tippo-Tip. 



On the following day Stanley wrote to the commissioner at 

 Stanley Falls that he intended to stay there for ten days, and asked 

 him to accompany him to VVadelai. Tippo-Tip declined this offer; 



and Stanley, after having sent another letter to Stanley Falls, started 

 on his way back to the Albert Nyanza. 



Mr. A. J. Wauters, the editor of the Moitvement geographique, 

 adds, " It will undoubtedly be found remarkable that Stanley, after 

 an absence of more than a year in the fastnesses of Central Africa, 

 without any news from Europe since May, 1887, did not push on to 

 the Falls Station, where he was sure to meet Europeans and to 

 find news. But he undoubtedly wished to avoid being asked 

 questions regarding his discoveries, and regarding Emin and his 

 projects, and therefore he left Banalya as rapidly as possible." 



He re-enforced his caravan by one hundred carriers of Barttelot, 

 his caravan now numbering two hundred and ninety-six men. Mr. 

 Bonny, the only white man of Barttelot's rear guard, still on the 

 Aruvimi, joined the expedition, which started eastward in the be- 

 ginning of September. If he returned as rapidly as he came from 

 the Albert Nyanza, he must have arrived there about the end of 

 November. 



These reports show that Osman Digma's letter, pretending that 

 the Mahdi had captured a European at Lado on Oct. 10, cannot 

 refer to Stanley or to Dr. Parke. They also dispose of the theory 

 that the " white pacha" who was reported from the Bahr-el-Gazal 

 region was Stanley ; and Lieut, van Gale's hypothesis that these 

 rumors referred to his expedition up the Obangi gains some prob- 

 ability. 



Stanley's correspondence addressed to Europe reached Stanley 

 Falls on Sept. 14. As Lieut. Baert left the station by canoe, he 

 did not take these important documents along, which were kept 

 back by Lieut. Haneuse. Lieut. Baert arrived at Bangala early in 

 November, where he met the steamer " Stanley," which conveyed 

 a number of men to the Aruvimi, where a station of the Belgian 

 Company was founded at that time. He reached Leopoldville on 

 board this steamer on Nov. 30. Stanley's letters are expected in 

 Europe about a month or two hence. 



THE TOPOGRAPHICAL SURVEY OF RHODE ISLAND. 



The endeavors of the Providence Franklin Society to arouse in- 

 terest in a topographical survey of the State of Rhode Island have 

 found a ready response in the Legislature of that State, and we 

 learn with great satisfaction that the field-work for a map of Rhode 

 Island has been completed. The work has been carried out by the 

 United States Geological Survey on a plan similar to that of Mas- 

 sachusetts, the State and the United States Geological Survey 

 sharing the expense equally. The State of Rhode Island falls 

 upon fifteen different sheets of the great " Atlas of the United 

 States," only five of which are wholly within the State. The total 

 cost of the work to the State of Rhode Island will be five thousand 

 dollars. The commissioners, David W. Hoyt, John W. Ellis, and 

 Winslow Upton, to whose endeavors we owe the taking-up of this 

 important work, conclude their report with some important consid- 

 erations and suggestions. " The State," so they say, " will obtain 

 a map similar to that which was contemplated in the plan of 1876, 

 on a somewhat smaller scale, at one- quarter the estimated expense 

 to the State. While this topographical survey is complete in itself, 

 for all that it professes to do, it does not undertake to determine 

 the boundary-lines of towns. This has been done in Massachu- 

 setts, as supplemental to the topographical survey, under an addi- 

 tional appropriation. Neither does this survey undertake to erect 

 exact and permanent bench-marks from which levels may be rec- 

 koned. 



" The commissioners desire to call the attention of the General 

 Assembly to the fact that no provision has been made, either by 

 the United States or by this State, for the publication and distri- 

 bution of this map. To be of service, some arrangement should 

 be made whereby it can be supplied, at a moderate expense, to the 

 citizens of the State, as soon as practicable after all the plates have 

 been received. 



" In the atlas published by New Jersey, whose survey has been 

 completed in co-operation with the LTnited States Geological Sur- 

 vey, seventeen sheets are made to cover the entire State. The 

 sheets overlap each other to some extent, and are so arranged as 

 to be of the greatest value for local purposes. Each sheet includes 

 more than three times the surface of a sheet of the United States Ge- 



