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MISCELLANEA 
and flint, and the Royal Society of London has sent out an expedition to 
examine and report upon tlie latter discovery, with a view to throwing 
light on the origin of the great African lakes. 
NORTH AMERICA 
British A.merica. The government of Newfoundland is issuing bonds 
for the construction and equipment of a railway from a point on the Ex- 
ploits river about 200 miles from Placentia Junction to Port-aux- Basques. 
AUSTRALASIA 
Au.str.\li.\. An expedition left Adelaide on May 22 to explore the in- 
terior of the island. Its return is not expected until late in 1897. 
POLAR REGIONS 
The .steam-yacht Windward left London for Franz Josef Land on June 9 
for the relief of the Jackson expedition. She carried a very large supply 
of provisions, a number of sledges, 5,000 tabloids of the essential proper- 
ties of blood, and several thousand letters and packages. The Windward 
will call at Vardo to take on board coal, sheep, and reindeer, and she ex- 
pects to communicate with the explorers at cape Flora, Franz Josef Land, 
on or about July 20. The return of the exploring party before 1897 is, 
however, very unlikely. 
MISCELLANEA 
The Suez C.\x.\i>. The traffic through the Suez canal in 1895 comprised 
3,4:J4 ships, of 8,448,383 tons, with 216,938 passengers. Of the ships, 
2,318 were British, 314 German, 278 French, 192 Dutch, 78 Italian, 72 
Austrian, 57 Norwegian, 39 Russian, 36 Turkish, 33 Spanish, 5 American, 
3 Portuguese, 2 Chinese, 2 Egyptian, 2 Japanese, 2 Swedish, and i Danish. 
Of the passengers, 118,639 were soldiers, 74,878 civilians, and 23,421 pil- 
grims and emigrants. The total receipts were 78,426,000 francs, an in- 
crease of 4,299,000 francs, gross, and of 3,172,000 francs, net, over those 
of 1894. The average duration of the transit was 16 hours 18 minutes, 
a reduction of 23 minutes from the average of the preceding year. 
Deep-se.\ Soundings. The British Admiralty has just issued its report 
of the deep-sea soundings conducted by shij^s of the royal navy in 1895. 
Commander A. F. Balfour, in the Penguin, while surveying in the South 
Pacific, found very deep water to the eastward of a line drawn between 
the Friendly and Kermadec islands. Soundings of 5,147 and 5,155 fath- 
oms were obtained in latitude 28° 44.4' S., longitude 176° 04' W., and 
latitude 30° 27.7' S., longitude 176° 39' W., respectively. The deepest 
sounding ever before obtained was 4,655 fathoms, to the northeast of 
Japan. The new soundings are therefore deeper by about 3,000 feet than 
anything before discov^ered. A remarkable fact in connection with the 
new soundings is that these extraordinary depths are not far from land. 
