4-iQ The National Geographic Magazine 



The completion of the cable between 

 Canada and Australia was celebrated 

 on October 31, when the first eastward 

 message was sent from Wellington, 

 New Zealand. It was a message of 

 congratulation from the premier of New 

 Zealand to Sir Sanford Fleming, of Ot- 

 tawa, as follows : 



' ' Delighted to congratulate you on 

 completion of great work of Pacific 

 cable, thus rewarding your interest and 

 labor in forging further link to advan- 

 tage of our empire. 



' ' Seddon, Premier. ' ' 



A bulletin soon to be issued by the 

 United States Geological Survey con- 

 tains a report by Dr C. W. Hay^es and 

 Mr William Kennedy on the Texas- 



Louisiana Oil Field, which is of partic- 

 ular interest at this time. 



NOTE FROM DR GEORGE DAVIDSON 



THE Geographical Society of the 

 Pacific has fallen heir to the 

 sum of five thousand dollars by the be- 

 quest of the late Mr John Dolbeer, of 

 San Francisco. Mr Dolbeer had been 

 one of the directors of the Society for 

 many years, and had always taken a 

 lively interest in geographic work, es- 

 pecially in all that related to the coun- 

 tries bordering the Pacific or contiguous 

 thereto. 



George Davidson. 



San Francisco, Cal., 



October 16, 1902. 



GEOGRAPHIC LITERATURE 



Through Hidden Shensi. By Francis 

 H. Nichols. Illustrated by photo- 

 graphs taken by the author. Chas. 

 Scribner's Sons. New York, 1902. 

 $3.50 net. 



Eight hundred miles southwest of 

 Pekin lies the province of Shensi. Its 

 area is greater than that of England and 

 Scotland combined. Its people are so 

 isolated that the people of Pekin speak 

 of the province as though it were a for- 

 eign country. Several years ago a fam- 

 ine ravaged the province, and the people 

 of the United States, at the appeal of the 

 Christian Herald, of New York, sent a 

 fund for the sufferers. Mr Frank H. 

 Nichols, acting as agent for the fund, 

 went to Shensi to distribute the relief 

 and report on the famine. ' ' Through 

 Hidden Shensi" is an interesting ac- 

 count of his experiences. The volume 

 is very well written and shows that the 

 author is an observing traveler, one who 

 appreciated and was in turn liked and 

 respected by the people among whom 

 he journeyed, 



The White World. Life and adventures 

 within the Arctic Circle portrayed by 

 famous living explorers. Collected 

 and arranged for the Arctic Club by 

 Rudolf Kersting. Illustrated. New 

 York: Lewis, Scribner & Co. 1902. 

 $2.00 net. 



The author has brought together in 

 this volume .some twenty or more re- 

 markable descriptions of arctic life. 

 Admiral Schley contributes the opening 

 chapter — a thrilling story of the rescue 

 of Greely's heroic survivors. Amos 

 Bonsall, the only survivor of the famous 

 Kane expedition of 1 853-1 855, compares 

 present methods of arctic exploration 

 with those of fifty years ago. Three 

 members of Greely's expedition, Major 

 Brainard, Henry Biederbick, and Fran- 

 cis Long, contribute respectively chap- 

 ters on " Farthest North with Greeh'," 

 "Polar Hospitals," and an "Arctic 

 Bear Hunt." The wildest romance of 

 Hope or Weyman is tame beside the 

 grim tragedy of the Greely expedition 

 as partly told by these three heroes. 



