SCIENCE 



FRIDAY, AUGUST lo, i88S. 



While the lack of reliable information prevents us from gain- 

 ing an understanding of Stanley's fate and the ultimate objects of 

 his expedition, news has been received as to the events in Khar- 

 tum. In May two messengers arrived in Cairo, carrying brief 

 notes from Slatin Bey and several other European captives of the 

 Mahdii The handwriting of the writers was recognized by their 

 friends, so that there can be no doubt as to their being genuine. 

 The fate of the captives is pitiful. Only the missionaries are at 

 liberty, and they are allowed to make a living by selling boiled beans 

 in the streets of Khartum. Lupton Bey, formerly governor of the 

 province Bahr-el-Gazel, was made to work in the armory like a 

 common Arab. Recently he has been enployed in the mint of the 

 Mahdi. Slatin Bey is made the Mahdi's runner, and has to hold 

 his stirrup. Others are imprisoned, and the Mahdi threatens to 

 execute them. The messengers describe the state of affairs in the 

 Mahdi's province as miserable. The inhabitants of Khartum are 

 said to be starving, and there is a great want of clothing and of 

 money. Discord prevails between the followers of the Mahdi 

 and several chiefs. One of the latter recently tried to gain his in- 

 dependence, but as the Mahdi's party was more numerous he sub- 

 mitted. Although a formal peace was made, the Mahdi made 

 the chief a prisoner and had him hanged. The messenger says 

 that a force of five hundred men of Turkish or Egyptian troops 

 approaching from Wadi Haifa would be able to destroy the 

 Mahdi's power. The tribes of the Sudan are discontented with his 

 rule, and after a short time he would find himself deserted by 

 ■everybody, a few fanatics excepted. It is considered impossible to 

 ransom the prisoners, as caravans conveying money or goods 

 would be robbed and murdered before arriving in Khartum. Last 

 year a sheik of Berber offered to re-open the trade between Khar- 

 tum and Egypt. Although the Mahdi was not unwilling to accept 

 the offer, his council rejected it. This news is considered reliable, 

 and shows the difficulties which would be encountered in an at- 

 tempt to liberate the unfortunate captives. Various letters of 

 Emin Pacha confirm these reports, for he describes the effect of 

 the despotic rule of the Mahdi about in the same way. In how 

 far, however, the subjected tribes would be ready to assist in an 

 attack upon the Mahdi appears doubtful, as we might else expect 

 that they would join Emin, whose difficulties seem to be compara- 

 tively great. From recent reports it would seem that the Mahdi is 

 contemplating a new attack upon the Equatorial Province, and 

 that Emin is going northward to meet him. This news must be 

 received with due reserve, as it does not agree with former letters 

 of Emin and the apparent decline of the Mahdi's power. The de- 

 spatch says, " Two native messengers who were captured from an 

 earlier expedition by tribes in the Uganda district, bordering on the 

 Albert Nyanza, and who escaped from their captors about the be- 

 ginning of April, have just arrived here. They report that Emin 

 Bey was in a situation of great difficulty. Provisions were scarce, 

 and difficult to procure, and his troops were beginning to be dis- 

 couraged. On April 4 Emin received a summons from the Mahdi, 

 dated Khartum, calling on him to surrender and to disband his 

 troops, the Mahdi threatening to attack if Emin refused." It will be 

 remembered that Emin kept up friendly relations with Uganda and 

 Unyoro up to the end of last year, and that he was able to purchase 

 supplies in Uganda. In November, 1SS7, he sent letters from the 

 southern part of Lake Albert Nyanza, and stated that he was ex- 

 tending the limits of his province southward. Since the unex- 



pected retreat of the Mahdi during the great war in the Sudan, he 

 has not been molested by serious attacks from the north. 



At l.\st there is rea.son to hope that the publications of the 

 Geological Survey will be printed. There are now in the hands of 

 the public printer more than forty volumes prepared by the Geo- 

 logical Survey and the Bureau of Ethnology. Among these are 

 the annual reports of the Geological S*vey for 1886 and 1887. 

 The ' copy ' of that of 1888 is also nearly ready. The Government 

 Printing-office is full of work from all of the departments, and 

 which has been ordered by Congress, and, as a rule, it is left to the 

 discretion of the public printer as to the order in which the work 

 shall be done. The work of the Geological Survey and Bureau of 

 Ethnology has generally been postponed. The appropriation for 

 the printing of the publications of these two offices for the present 

 fiscal year has been made a specific one : it cannot be used for any 

 thing else. This will cause the public printer to do the work in 

 order to get the money. Provision has been made for the printing 

 of fifteen thousand extra copies of the annual reports of the Geo- 

 logical Surve)', and six thousand copies of the bulletins of the 

 Bureau of Ethnology for last year and this. The prompt issue of 

 the publications of these two offices is certain to make them more 

 popular, and to commend them more strongly to Congress for 

 liberal support. They have gone on in the past, year after year' 

 expending large sums of money, and making ver^'little show in the 

 way of printed matter in return for it. But this has not been the 

 fault of Director Powell or of his assistants. They have prepared 

 a great mass of matter, but the public printer has allowed it to ac- 

 cumulate in his office without putting it into type. It is now ex- 

 pected that the arrears of this work will be brought up during the 

 coming year. The volumes that will appear during the next twelve 

 months contain a great fund of popular and scientific matter. 



The appropriation of $250,000 for the purpose of investi- 

 gating the extent to which the arid region of the United States can 

 be redeemed by irrigation, and the segregation of the irrigable 

 lands, and for the selection of sites for reservoirs and other 

 hydraulic works necessary for the storage and utilization of water 

 for irrigation, and to make the necessar>' maps, which was 

 attached to the sundry civil appropriation bill by the Senate, will 

 be agreed to by the House. A careful canvass of the members 

 shows that a sufficient number will vote for it, whether the com- 

 mittee report favorably or otherwise upon it. In authorizing the 

 beginning of this important work, the government enters upon an 

 enterprise of greater magnitude than any of the kind it has ever 

 engaged in. Director Powell of the Geological Survey has esti- 

 mated, that, of the arid region, now not susceptible of cultivation, 

 fifteen per cent, or 150,000 square miles, or an area exceeding that 

 of one-half the land now cultivated in the United States, may be 

 redeemed. At thirty dollars an acre, which is a low estimate of 

 the value of the rich lands of the West when plentifully supplied 

 with water, this land, which is now worth almost nothing, would 

 have a value of $2,880,000,000. By comparison the building of the 

 Pacific Railroad sinks almost into insignificance as a means of 

 adding to the wealth of the nation. 



THE CENSUS MAPS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

 As the time is approaching for the Eleventh Census of the 

 United States, the question whether the maps used for the pur- 

 poses of the Tenth Census are satisfactory or not becomes impor- 



