Mat 6, 1887.J 



SCIEJS'CE. 



43a 



to the hostility of the Marabout Mahmadu Lamine, 

 two expeditions were formed last December to 

 proceed against him (Proc. roy. geogr. soe., April, 

 1887). The country to be traversed is little known, 

 and topographical surveys will be carried on dur- 

 ing the expedition. Besides this, Dr. Tautain and 

 Lieutenant Quiquandon will explore the country 

 adjoining the north-easlern boundary of Senegam- 

 bia, which includes the country called Bakunu, 

 between the desert and the upper course of the 

 Niger. It was traversed by Mungo Park in 1796. 

 A third party will survey the unknown part of 

 the Niger, as far as it forms the boundary of 

 Senegambia, and ascend the Tankiso, which has 

 its source in Futa-Jalon, and has never been 

 visited. 



Asia. 



H. E. M. James, F. E. Younghusband, and H. 

 Fulford have made an interesting journey in a 

 part of Manchuria which had hitherto not been 

 visited by Europeans. They left Mukden, the 

 capital of South Manchuria, on May 29, 1886, in- 

 tending to ascend the Yalu River and to reach the 

 point where the Chinese, Korean, and Russian 

 frontiers meet. They were prevented from carry- 

 ing out their intention by the impracticability of 

 the upper valley of the Yalu. Therefore they 

 turned due north, up one of the tributaries of the 

 Yalu, crossed the main chain of mountains by a 

 low pass 2,700 feet high, and came down the 

 Tang-ho, an affluent of the main or western branch 

 of the Sungari. They then visited the Chang 

 Pei-shan (' ever white mountain ')• It was found 

 to be a recently extinct volcano, with a lovely 

 blue pellucid lake filling the bottom of the crater, 

 and surmounted by a serrated circle of peaks ris- 

 ing about 650 feet above the surface of the water. 

 The loftiest of these was found to be 7,525 feet 

 high, while formerly its height was estimated at 

 10,000 to 13,000 feet. The sides of the mountain 

 are composed of disintegrated pumice, to which 

 its conspicuously white aspect is due. There are 

 no glaciers, but snow lies in the clefts all the year 

 round. The Pei-shan forms the centre of the 

 river-system of Manchuria ; the Yalu, which 

 forms the southern part of the Korean frontier, 

 the Tumen, which forms its northern part, and 

 the western Sungari, having their sources here. 

 From here the party went to Kirin, descending 

 the Sungari. While the rest of Manchuria is in- 

 fested with robbers, the colonists and hunters of 

 this district have managed to suppress them, and 

 travelling is comparatively safe. Considerable 

 difficulties were experienced owing to incessant 

 rains, which made the rivers impassable. Numer- 

 ous gold-diggings were met with, the most exten- 

 sive being but a few marches from Kirin. Here 



they staid for three weeks, and started on Sept. 

 3 for Tsitsihar, the capital of northern Manchuria, 

 on the Nonni, a tributary of the Sungari. From 

 Tsitsihar they turned south-east, and crossed a 

 high, undulating, and perfectly uncultivated 

 steppe, with numerous brackish lakes. At the 

 shores of these lakes, earth containing soda and 

 salt is gathered, from which soda and salt are made. 

 Thus they reached Hulan, on the Hulan River, a 

 few miles from the Sungari. The country all 

 around here is very fertile, and is being rapidly 

 settled, some of the towns having upward of 

 25,000 inhabitants. They visited the south-east 

 corner of Manchuria, where the Russian, Korean, 

 and Chinese frontiers meet, and returned to Kirin 

 and Mukden. A great part of the country they 

 traversed was never visited by Europeans, and 

 the compass survey of their route will be very 

 valuable {Proc. roy. geogr. soc, Dec, 1886 : April, 

 1887). 



America. 



La gazette geographique (April 21) says that 

 Chaff an jon's explorations on the upper Orinoco 

 have been successful, and that he has returned to 

 Ciudad Bolivar. 



Thenar's expedition, which was sent out to ex- 

 plore the Pilcomayo, is detained at Lagunillas, on 

 account of the outbreak of cholera in Paraguay. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



The second annual meeting of the American 

 economic association will be held in Boston and 

 Cambridge, May 21-25, 1887. The meetings will, 

 for the most part, be held in the buildings of the 

 Massachusetts institute of technology ; but one 

 session will be held at Harvard university in Cam- 

 bridge. The following is the programme, subject 

 to revision : May 21 (evening), joint session of the 

 American economic association and the American 

 historical association, with addresses by the presi- 

 dents of the two associations (Gen. Francis A. 

 Walker and Prof. Justin Winsor), reception of 

 both associations in the Museum of fine arts ; 

 May 23, report of the standing committee on trans- 

 portation, 'Agitation for federal regulation of the 

 railways ' (by Prof. E. J. James), ' Long and short 

 haul clauses of the federal railway law ' ( by Dr. 

 Edwin R. A. Seligman), ' Some curious phases of 

 the railway question in Europe ' (by Simon Sterne, 

 Esq.), ' Sociological character of political econ- 

 omy ' (by F. H. Giddings, Esq.), and ' Mine labor 

 in the Hocking valley ' (by Dr. Edward W. Bemis) ; 

 May 24 (forenoon), economic association, report 

 of committee on trade on ' Condition and organi- 

 zation of retail trade,' report of standing com- 



