282 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XIII. No. 323 



SCIENCE 



A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER OF ALL THE ARTS AND SCIENCES. 



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 'Communications of our correspondents. 



NEW YORK. April 12, iS 



No. 323. 



CONTENTS: 



Michel Eugene Chevreul 



The Smith Electric Conduit Svs- 



Snow-Broom for Use on Electric 



Railways : 



The Extension of the Metric Sys- 



EXCAVATIONS facilitated BY FrEEZ- 



The Lignite Industry in German 



The Chinch-Bug in Illinois 



The Wagner Regulator 



Health Matters. 



The Hughes Crematory 



The Morphine Habit 



Schoolroom Space 



Sulphur Fumigation 



Dried Potato 



Spontaneous Combustion 



The Suppression of Small-Pox . . . . 



Electrical News. 



'Canal-Boat Propulsion 



Influence of Light on Magnetism. 



The Purification of Sewage 

 Secondary Batteries 



Notes and News 



Editorial 



The News from Stanley. 



Stanley's Letter 



California Wines 



Book-Reviews. 

 Chambers's Encyclopaedia. 



Harper's Readers 



Longmans' New Atlas 



Publishers . . 286 



Letters T( 

 The Rob: 



; Editor. 

 Anemometer 



C. F, Marvin : 

 The Metric System and Profes- 

 sional Teaching W, H. Seaman : 

 Platinum in British Columbia 



Geor^^e M, Dawson : 

 The Age of the Denver Formation 



E. D. Cope : 

 '. IV. G. Brown '. 



The news of Stanley's journey from Yambuyato Mvutan Nzige 

 confirms the view formerly expressed* that his object of relieving 

 Emin Pacha has failed. From his report we learn that Emin, 

 Tather, had to relieve him, and, by furnishing men, has enabled him 

 to return to the Kongo. The results of Stanley's wonderful jour- 

 ney will undoubtedly be of the greatest importance to science, as 

 they will clear up the geographical relations between the Kongo 

 basin and the lakes of the upper Nile. Regarding the appearance 

 of this region, Stanley says : " We were one hundred and sixty days 

 lin the forest, — one continuous, unbroken, compact forest. The 

 ;grass-land was traversed by us in eight days. The limits of the 

 iforest along the edge of the grass-land are well marked. We saw 

 at extending north-easterly, with its curves, bavs, and capes, just 

 like a seashor-e. South-westerly it preserved the same character. 

 North and south the forest area extends from Nyangwe to the 

 southern borders of Mombuttu. East and west it embraces all the 

 country from the Kongo, at the mouth of the Aruvimi, to about 

 east longitude 29°. How far west beyond the Kongo the forest 

 reaches, I do not know. The superficial extent of the tract de- 

 scribed totally covered by forest is 246,000 square miles. North of 

 the Kongo, between Upoto and the Aruvimi, the forest embraces 

 another 20,000 square miles. Between Yambuya and Mvutan 

 Nzige we came across five distinct languages. The land slopes 

 gently from the crest of the plateau above the Mvutan down to 

 (the Kongo River, from an altitude of 5,500 feet to 1,400 feet above 



the sea. North and south of our track through the grass-land the 

 fall of the land was much broken by groups of cones or isolated 

 mountain ridges. To the north we saw no land higher than about 

 6,000 feet above the sea; but bearing 215° magnetic, at a dis- 

 tance of 50 miles from our camp on the Mvutan, we saw a tower- 

 ing mountain, its summit covered with snow, probably 17,000 or 

 iS,ooo feet above the sea. It is called Ruevenzori, and will prove 

 a rival to Kilma Njaro. I am not sure that it may not prove to be the 

 Gordon Bennett Mountain in Gambaragara, but there are two rea- 

 sons for doubting if it be the same : first, it is a little too far west 

 for the position of the latter, as given by me in 1876 ; second, we 

 saw no snow on the Gordon Bennett. I have met only three natives 

 who have seen the lake toward the south. They agree that it is 

 large, but not so large as the Albert Nyanza." We give the sub- 

 stance of Stanley's experiences at another place. 



As usual, this news was immediately followed by another de- 

 spatch, purporting to give further details of more recent adventures 

 of the explorers ; but, coming as it does from Brussels, it merits 

 more serious attention than the Zanzibar news of Renter's bureau. 

 The telegram is dated Brussels, April 7, and says, " Advices received 

 here from Stanley Falls state that Arabs who have arrived there 

 report that Henry M. Stanley and Emin Pacha were heard from in 

 February. They were then marching toward Zanzibar, with several 

 thousand men, women, and children. They also had six thousand 

 tusks of ivory. The Arabs who brought the news arrived at Stan- 

 ley Falls in February. They claimed to have seen Stanley several 

 months before that time." It may be that the steamer which car- 

 ried this news to Leopoldville brought down Stanley's letter, which, 

 as will be remembered, was detained for some reason or other at 

 Stanley Falls when the first news of Stanley's return was sent to 

 Europe. One interesting fact is learned from Stanley's report. It 

 is the recent advance made by the Arab slave-dealers in the coun- 

 try north of Stanley Falls. It appears that since their first advent 

 on the Kongo they have rapidly encroached upon the territory of 

 the northern tributaries of the Kongo ; and it also appears that at 

 no very distant day the invaders who started from Dar For, and 

 those who extended their raids from Zanzibar, will meet in the 

 Welle region. In the face of these facts, the endeavors of the 

 European nations to suppress that insignificant part of the slave- 

 trade reaching the coast appear altogether hopeless, unless they 

 succeed in cutting off the supply of fire-arms from the slave-dealers, 

 thus destroying one of the principal causes of their superiority over 

 the aborigines. 



STANLEY'S LETTER. 



Stanley's letter, although containing no more recent informa- 

 tion than the telegram sent a few months ago, describes graphically 

 the enormous difficulties encountered by the intrepid explorer ; and 

 his description is the more impressive on account of its briefness 

 and of the simplicity with which the most e-xciting events are set 

 forth. The expedition, which consisted of 389 officers and men, 

 started from the camp of Yambuya, on the Aruvimi, on June 28, 

 1887. The very first day the natives attempted to prevent the 

 progress of the expedition, but were unable to put any serious ob- 

 stacles in its way. For seven days the expedition marched inland 

 in an easterly direction, through a densely populated district. 

 Evidently Stanley kept on the southern side of the river. His letter 

 says that this course took him out of his proper direction, which 

 tends to confirm the report that the Aruvimi runs more southerly 

 than indicated in most maps. He again reached the river on July 

 5. From this date until Oct. 18 he followed the left bank of the 

 Aruvimi. After seventeen days of continuous marching, the expe- 

 dition halted for one day's rest. Aug. I the first death occurred, 

 the cause being dysentery. So far, for thirty-four days, the course 

 had been singularly successful. • 



Assuming that he made good progress, his first day's journey 

 having been twelve miles, he would have been approximately north- 

 east of Stanley Falls. Here his difficulties began. The party 



