October 2, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



491 



RECENT GEOGRAPHICAL EXPLORATIONS. 



In an introduction to his address as President 

 to the Geographical Section of the British As- 

 sociation, Major Darwin summarized recent 

 geographic work, referring first to the feat ac- 

 complished by Nansen. It is not merely that 

 he has gone considerably nearer the North Pole 

 than any other explorer; it is not only that he 

 has made one of the most courageous expedi- 

 tions ever recorded, but he has established the 

 truth of his theory of Polar currents, and has 

 brought back a mass of valuable scientific in- 

 formation. Besides the news of this most re- 

 markable achievement, the results of a consid- 

 erable amount of useful exploratory work have 

 been published since the British Association 

 met last at Ipswich. With regard to other Arc- 

 tic Expeditions, we have had the account of 

 Lieutenant Peary's third season in Northern 

 Greenland, from which place he came back in 

 September last, and to which he has again re- 

 turned, though without the intention of passing 

 another winter there. In October the Wind- 

 ward brought home more ample information as 

 to the progress of the Jackson-Harmsworth Ex- 

 pedition than that communicated by telegram 

 to the Association at Ipswich, and on her re- 

 turn from her remarkably rapid voyage this 

 summer she brought back the record of an- 

 other year. As to geographical work in Asia, 

 Mr. and Mrs. Littledale returned safely from 

 their explorations of the little known parts 

 of Thibet ; the Pamir Boundery Commission 

 under Colonel Holdich has collected a great 

 deal of accurate topographical information in 

 the course of its labors ; Dr. Sven Hedin con- 

 tinues his important researches in Turkestan ; 

 and the Royal Geographical Society was glad 

 to welcome Prince Henry of Orleans when 

 he came to tell about his journey near the 

 sources of the Irrawaddy. As to Africa, the 

 most important additions to our knowledge of 

 that continent are due to the French surveyors, 

 who have accurately mapped the recently dis- 

 covered series of lakes in the neighborhood of 

 Timbuktu, Lake Faguibine, the largest, being 

 found to be 68 miles in length ; Dr. Donaldson 

 Smith has filled up some large blanks in the 

 map of Somaliland ; and Mr. and Mrs. Theo- 

 dore Bent have investigated some interesting 



remains of ancient gold workings inland of the 

 Red Sea. In other parts of the world less has 

 been done, because there is less to do. Mr. 

 Fitzgerald has proved for the first time the 

 practicable character of a pass across the South- 

 ern Alps, thus supplementing the excellent 

 work of Mr. Harper and other pioneers of the 

 New Zealand Alpine Club ; and Sir W. M. 

 Conway has commenced a systematic explora- 

 tion of the interior of Spitzbergen, a region to 

 which the attention of several other geog- 

 raphers is also directed. 



THE UNIVERSITY SCIENTIFIC MAGAZINE. 



The universities and technical colleges have, 

 of late years, been publishing scientific maga- 

 zines under the auspices of and sometimes direct- 

 ly by, their scientific and technical college de- 

 partments. In most cases they are conducted 

 and managed by students as private ventures, but 

 usually securing a considerable proportion of 

 their contributions from members of the college 

 faculty and from the alumni ; in some instances 

 they are controlled wholly by members of the 

 faculty or the alumni. 



There has just come to hand a copy of the 

 University Scientific Magazine^ published by the 

 Engineering Society of the University of Ten- 

 nessee, at Kuoxville. This is a good example 

 of the class. It contains, within the compass 

 of about forty pages, a number of valuable ar- 

 ticles, interesting both as original contributions 

 to science, and as exhibiting the progress of 

 scientific work at that institution and in this 

 field. 



Dr. Perkins discusses the experimental work 

 of Hertz on the electro-magnetic theory of light. 

 Prof. Wait takes up the distribution of titanium, 

 which he finds in vegetable ash, and, in another 

 article, the oxidation of silver by lead-oxide. 

 An excellent biographical sketch of Dr. Per- 

 kins, with a good portrait, add variety and in- 

 terest to the issue. A note by Giddersleeve on 

 the zinc deposits of Tennessee gives an excellent 

 idea of the extent and importance of the mineral 

 deposits of the State and indicate that it may 

 become an important zinc-producer. The re- 

 port on a test of an isolated gas engine electric 

 lighting plant shows the character of the work 

 in engineering. It shows further that, for 



