144 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 
extended over a number of years, can prove the correctness of this assumption, 
it is recommended that scientific observing stations be established on the northern 
coasts of Europe. Matotschkin Schar in Novaya Zemlya and the island of Waaigat 
offer themselves as meteorological stations where exact observations might be 
made as to the direction of the wind which renders Kara Strait, or Jugor Strait, 
or the Matotschkin entrance, free from ice, and the results thus obtained might 
be communicated to approaching vessels. The letter went on to say that an 
examination of the difficult navigation of the Obi, and the discovery of a suitable 
harbor in the Gulf of Obi were also urgently required, as the conditions of the 
latter were much more unfavorable than those at the mouth of the Yenissel. As 
a matter of curiosity the suggestion was alluded to that the difficulties of navi 
gating the Obi might be altogether avoided by the construction of a railway 
connecting the Charua-Juga, a tributary of the Obi, with Khaipudirskaia Bay-~ 
(60° east long. of Greenwich). The President further announced that the expe- 
dition which purposes to found a station in East Central Africa, and which is 
composed of Captain von Schloer, the zoologist, Dr. Boehm, Dr. Kayser, for 
geodesy, and the civil engineer Mr. Reichard (the latter accompanying the expe- 
dition at his own expense) was about to start from Berlin, and would probably 
establish a station at the southeast end of Lake Tanganyika. H. M., the King of 
the Belgians, had contributed for this purpose 40,000 francs, and the German- 
African Society their subscriptions for the year 1880, which amount to 16,000 
marks. Dr. Boehm next addressed the meeting on the discovery of the sources 
of the Niger; and Dr. Stolze gave a description, based upon his own observa- 
tions, of Faristan, the cradle of the old Persian nation. 
THE FRENCH IN THE SAHARA. 
The French project for building a railway from Algiers across the Sahara des- 
ert to the Niger and thence to their colony on the Senegal has caused the sending 
out of several expeditions for determining the most suitable line, for which pur- 
pose the Ministry of Public Works has received a grant of $120,000. A though 
the railroad may never be built, geographical science is sure to profit by these ex- 
plorations. Three separate expeditions have been organized in Algeria, of which 
the first will operate only in the colony, while the second explores the Algerian 
Sahara not beyond the oasis of El Goléa. ‘Their leaders are M. M. Pouyanne 
and de Choisy. The third and chief expedition, which is under the command of 
Colonel Flatters, started from Ouargla oasis on the 5th of March. It consists of 
the leader, nine scientific companions, including Dr. Guyard, of the Anthropo- 
logical Society, and some engineers, surveyors, etc., an escort of twelve French 
and sixteen native soldiers, the later being frontier Arabs, and sixty-eight camel 
drivers and servants of the Chambaas tribe, a total of 106 persons. The mate- 
rials and supplies are transported by fifteen horses and 220 camels. Colonel Flat- 
ters intends reaching Temassauin, nearly three hundred miles due south of 
