July 25, 1890.] 



SCIENCE. 



49 



lections, to the banks of the Cherchen River, where they couid 

 recover their strength with the abundant pasture. These animals 

 are intended to facilitate our return to Russia. Our baggage will 

 be carried into Thibet on oxen hired for the purpose. We our- 

 selves are riding thither on horseback, carrying with us the light 

 portion of our effects. We left Nia with 30 horses. During the 

 winter M. Roborovsky made an excursion to Cherchen, and I 

 made one to the mountains of Karangon-Fag, south of Khoten. 

 During my tour I met Grombchevsky, who came with me to 

 Khoten in February, and thence returned for a short time to Nia. 

 The health of all the members of the expedition is perfect ; and 

 during the winter we have received all our letters and papers from 

 St. Petersburg, thanks to the good oflSces of M. Petrovsky, our 

 consul at Kashgar. We shall send our collections to Russia 

 through his agency." M. Grombchevsky has informed the mili- 

 tary governor of the Syr-Darya district that the time of his 

 journey has been extended until Jan. 15, 1891. His expedition 

 has already traversed about 3,315 miles. M. Grombchevsky wiU 

 pass the summer in exploring Thibet between Polon-Lhasa and 

 Rudok. 



— The occurrence of St. Elmo's fire at sea has been lately studied 

 by Capt. Haltermann of Hamburg, who made examination of a 

 number of ships' log-books for 1884 and 1885, reporting 156 cases 

 in 800 months of observation. He finds, according to Nature, a 

 greater number of cases in north than io south latitudes ; and of 

 63 cases observed in the North Atlantic (the stormiest sea in 

 winter), 49 occurred in the months November to April, and only 

 14 in the other half of the year. Of the total (156), only 37 were 

 unaccompanied by thunder and lightning, and only 6 by precipi- 

 tates of some kind. Snow and hail showers, with strong wind, 

 seemed specially favorable. Of 133 cases accompanied by rain, 

 th^re were only 15 without also thunder and lightning; while of 

 83 with hail, 18 were without thunder and lightning ; and of 14 

 with snow, 12 without thunder and lightning. As to wind, there 

 were instances with all degrees of intensity. The wind was in 

 most cases (beyond 35° latitude) from equatorial direction ; and 

 this, with the commonly observed decrease of pressure, indicates 

 that the cases mostly occurred in the front part of depressions. In 

 46 cases the barometer rose, and in 8 it was unaffected. In most 

 cases the thermometer fell. Between the equator and 10° north 

 latitude, 12 cases were observed, and not one in the correspond- 

 ing region to the south, where the trade-wind generally prevails. 

 In the region of the constantly blowing trade- wind, St. Elmo's 

 fire is never met with. The western half of seas extending pole- 

 wards from 30° latitude seems to afford the best conditions. On 

 the whole, the occurrence of St. Elmo's fire may probably be 

 ascribed to the same causes as give rise to thunder and lightning. 



— The Lucayan Indians, who inhabited the islands now called 

 tSe Bahamas, were the first Indians seen by Columbus. In less 

 than twenty years this interesting people, numbering, according 

 to the estimate of the conquerors, forty thousand persons, was 

 wholly exterminated. The hammock was found among the 

 Lucayans ; and both the word and the thing were adopted by the 

 Spaniards, through whom they were passed on to other nations. 

 Various skulls have been recovered from caves in the Bahamas, 

 and have been made the subject of a valuable paper by Mr. W. 

 K. Brooks. This paper was read some time ago before the 

 National Academy of Sciences, says Nature of July 10, and has 

 now been reprinted as a separate memoir, with carefully executed 

 illustrations. Columbus testifies that the Lucayans were "of 

 good size, with large eyes, and broader foreheads than he had 

 ever seen in any other race of men ; " and Mr. Brooks says this 

 agrees perfectly with the results he has reached, the most con- 

 spicuous characteristics of the skulls he has examined being the 

 great breadth noted by Columbus, and the massiveness and solid- 

 ity of the head. " We may therefore unhesitatingly decide," 

 says Mr. Brooks, " that they are the remains of the people who 

 inhabited the islands at the time of their discovery, and that 

 these people were a well-marked type of that North American 

 Indian race which was at that time distributed over the Bahama 

 Islands, Hayti, and the greater part of Cuba. As these islands 

 are only a few miles from the peninsula of Florida, this race 



must at some time have inhabited at least the south-eastern ex- 

 tremity of the continent ; and it is therefore extremely interesting 

 to note that the North American crania which exhibit the closest 

 resemblance to those from the Bahama Islands have been ob- 

 tained from Florida." 



— Mr. James Bennett has, according to the Colonies and India, 

 been commissioned by Lord Knutsford to proceed to Lagos, to 

 make full inquiry into and report upon the mineral and vegetable 

 resources of the colony with a view to their further development. 

 Mr. Bennett is the inventor of a special process for extracting, by 

 means of chemicals, pure' rubber from the milk of the wild fig- 

 tree, of which several species are to be found in Lagos and the 

 neighborhood, and it seems likely that considerable advantage will 

 accrue to the colony from his visit. Mr. Bennett will devote par- 

 ticular attention to such products as rubber, gums, fibres, and 

 minerals, in which it is thought that the present trade of the 

 colony may be largely increased, or which are considered likely to 

 become subjects of local manufacture. 



— The London Times gives some details of the new expedition 

 to the north pole, for which the Norwegian National Assembly 

 voted 200,000 kroner on June 30, and which will be under the 

 charge of M. Nansen. Hitherto, with one possible exception, all 

 attempts to reach the north pole have been made in defiance of 

 the obstacles of Nature. It has been an open campaign between 

 the endurance of man and the icy barrier of the Arctic Seas, in 

 which Nature has always been triumphant. On this occasion a 

 systematic and well-organized attempt will be made to ascertain 

 if Nature herself has not supplied a means of solving the diffi- 

 culty, and if there is not, after all, a possibility of reaching the 

 north pole by utilizing certain natural facilities in these frozen 

 seas of which all earlier explorers were ignorant. The circum- 

 stances on which these new hopes are founded may be thus sum- 

 marized. The " Jeannette" expedition of 1879-81, and the loss of 

 that vessel, seemed to sound the knell of all expeditions to reach 

 the pole by Bering Straits ; but in the end the results of that 

 effort are shown to have been more satisfactory and auspicious 

 than any of the officers of the "Jeannette" could have hoped 

 for, when, with extreme difSculty, they succeeded in reaching 

 Siberia across the ice from their wrecked vessel. In June, 1884, 

 exactly three years after the " Jeannette " sank, there were found 

 near Julianshaab, in Greenland, several articles which had be- 

 longed to the " Jeannette," and been abandoned at the time of 

 its wreck by the crew, and which had been carried to the coast 

 of Greenland from the opposite side of the Polar Sea on a piece 

 of ice. This fact at once aroused curiosity as to how it accom- 

 plished the journey across the Arctic Ocean, and as to what un- 

 known current had borne the message from Bering Straits to 

 Greenland. However these objects reached Julianshaab, they 

 could not have come in an eastern direction, through Smith's 

 Sound, for the only current which reaches Julianshaab is that 

 from the eastern coast of Greenland via Cape Farewell and the 

 north. Nor is there much probability that they were borne in a 

 western direction from the place where the " Jeannette " sank, 

 for all the currents round Nova Zembla, Franz- Josef Land: and 

 Spitzbergen are known, and it seems impossible for the ice bear- 

 ing the relics of the unfortunate " Jeannette " to have traversed 

 the intervening distance _ in the space of three years, even if it 

 were possible at all. There remains only the alternative, that 

 there is a comparatively short and direct route across the Arctic 

 Ocean by way of the north pole, and that Nature herself has sup- 

 plied a means of communication, however uncertain, across it. 

 Increased significance to the discovery of the " Jeannette" relics 

 in 1884 was given by the identification in 1886 of bows found on 

 the coast of Greenland with those by the Eskimo in the vicinity 

 of Bering Straits, at Port Clarence, Norton Sound, and the mouth 

 of the Yukon River. M. Nansen's expedition will endeavor to 

 realize these hopes of a direct route across the apex of the Arctic 

 Ocean. A specially constructed boat of one hundred and seventy 

 tons will be built, and provisions and fuel taken for five years, 

 although it is hoped that two will suffice. The expedition will 

 consist of ten or twelve men, and M. Nansen proposes to leave 

 Norway in February, 1892. 



