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be permitted me to express the hope, in which all lovers of 

 mankind will unite, that the " Livingstonia, " and various other 

 proposed British settlements on the great central lakes, will ere 

 long be instrumental in furthering the cause for which Living- 

 stone lived and died — in removing the fearful blight and curse 

 of slavery, so that the barbarian kingdoms of Karagui, Uganda, 

 and Unyora may begin to fulfil the lamented Captain Speke's 

 prophecy, that, in course of time, from the nature of the land, 

 they were likely to become ' ' one of the greatest nations on the 

 earth." 



•In referring to the geographical enterprise of last year, I can 

 scarcely omit to notice the Swedish scientific exploration of the 

 great river Jenisei under Professor JSTordenskj old, and the three 

 Russian expeditions through Siberia, from which it seems highly 

 probable that beneficial results will accrue to science. Commerce 

 also will be benefited greatly if, as it is proposed, the Angura (a 

 tributary of the Jenisei), be made navigable to Lake Baikal, and 

 the Obi connected with the Jenisei, and the Jenisei with the 

 Lena. When this is carried out there will be unbroken water 

 communication inland from the north of Asia to the south, and 

 from the west to the east, besides the sea communication between 

 these lands and Europe. A Sunderland merchant captain, Captain 

 Wiggins, has had the honour of demonstrating recently the latter 

 route ; and he has also been asked by the Russian Government to 

 undertake a second expedition to rTovaya Zeinlya this year. ' ( How 

 great an extent of territory the proposed river communication will 

 embrace is best seen by considering the extraordinary fact that 

 the territory drained by the Obi-Irtisch and the Jenisei alone is 

 of greater extent, according to Yon Baer's calculation, than the 

 river areas of all the rivers (the Danube, Don, Dnieper, Dniester, 

 Nile, Po, Ebro, Rhone, etc.) which fall into the Black Sea, the 

 Sea of Marmora, and the Mediterranean. Part of this territory, 

 indeed, lies north of the Arctic Circle, but here too are found the 

 most extensive and finest forests of the globe ; south of the forest 

 region proper there stretch out territories, several hundred leagues 

 in extent, level, free of stones, covered with the most fertile 

 soil which only waits for the plough of the cultivator to yield 



