524 GEOGRAPHIC MISCELLANEA 



tion of the southland, the "territory" of the Southern railway, its 

 scenery, its soil, its people, its products, presented in so charming a way 

 that it reads like a novel, and profusely illustrated with the finest of 

 modern work. Considered simply as a piece of book-making, it is, in 

 paper, print, and illustration, one of the finest specimens that the cen- 

 tury has brought forth. H. G. 



Hawaii and Its People. The Land of Rainbow and Palm. By A. S. 

 Twombly. Boston : Silver, Burdett & Company. 1899. 

 This book, an historical reader for young people, is a very readable ac- 

 count of the Hawaiian people, their legends, beliefs, and characteristics. 

 It is divided into three parts, which deal, first, with the myths and folk- 

 lore of ancient Hawaii; second, with the transition period, beginning 

 with Captain Cook's discovery of it; and, third, with modern Hawaii. 

 Into it also is woven much of the descriptive and economic geography of 

 the country, and the book has a number of good and attractive illustra- 

 tions. It is one of a series of supplementary readers published by the 

 same firm, of which are Australia and the Islands of the Sea and Our Amer- 

 ican Neighbors. C. L. G. 



The Yosemite, Alaska, and the Yelluivstone. By William H. Wiley and Sara 

 King Wiley. 4to, pp. xix 4- 230, with 157 illustrations. London 

 and New York: John Wiley & Sons. 

 This book is an interesting narrative, somewhat in the form of a jour- 

 nal, of the trip made by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers 

 to the San Francisco convention, in the spring of 1892. 



GEOGRAPHIC MISCELLANEA 



Vessels drawing 25 feet of water can now enter Galveston harbor, and 

 the foreign commerce of the port is rapidly increasing. 



Work on the Simplon tunnel is being prosecuted with great energy, but 

 its completion is not looked for before the summer of 1904. 



Professor Wilhelm Joest, who died some time ago during an expe- 

 dition among the South Sea islands, is reported to have left $75,000 

 to the Ethnological Museum in Berlin. The interest of the bequest is to 

 be used for purchasing new collections and assisting scientific expeditions. 



Dr F. A. Cook, surgeon and ethnologist of the Belgian Antarctic expe- 

 dition, in an article contributed to McClure's Magazine for November, en- 

 titled "Two Thousand Miles in the Antarctic Ice," gives an interesting 

 account of the experiences of the party during their winter in the South 

 Polar regions. 



The Dismal Swamp canal was officially opened to traffic on October 14. 

 The new waterway, which is 22 miles long, connects Chesapeake bay 

 with Albemarle sound and enables light-draft shipping to avoid the 

 much-dreaded Diamond shoals. It also opens up to improvement thou- 

 sands of acres of fertile land and a considerable area of good hardwood 

 and pine timber. 



