468 Chronicles of Science. [July, 



with more care and forethought than the previous unhappy failure. 

 At the same time that this cable is about to be laid, a project for 

 uniting the western coast of America with Asia is on foot ; and, it is 

 said, begun. From San Francisco the wires are to travel north- 

 ward along the coast of British Columbia, traversing forest, fell, 

 and river, until they have crossed the almost unknown districts of 

 Russian America. Leaving Cape Prince of Wales, they will span 

 Behring's Straits, where it is only thirty-six miles wide, and will 

 again descend the eastern coast of Asia to the river Amoor. It is 

 hoped to reach this point as soon as the telegraph from St. Peters- 

 burgh, and then we shall be in almost direct communication with 

 British Columbia, and even California. 



Central Africa, that exercising ground of incipient geographers, 

 contributes but little to our chronicle this quarter. M. Eugene Jacques 

 Marie de Pruyssenaeve died at Harab-al-dunia, near Khartum, on the 

 15th of December last, in his thirty-ninth year. Mr. Gerard Rolphs 

 has started from Tripoli towards Timbuctoo, aided by supplies from 

 Germany and our own Geographical Society. Dr. Mann, of Maritz- 

 burg, in Natal, has published the abstracts of six years' meteorological 

 observations at the Observatory on that spot ; according to these ob- 

 servations, the mean temperature nearly coincides with that of 

 Adelaide in South Australia, a district some way further south, but 

 having a hot and probably arid continent of land to the direct north 

 of it, whereas Natal has land to the west only with a tendency of 

 wind from the east. The amount of rain is greater than in London, 

 though it falls upon fewer days in the year. Lightning was visible 

 on 129 days in the year. The range of the thermometer is not ex- 

 treme, being from 97-1° to 29°, or only 68-1° Fahrenheit. Of the 

 38*3 inches of rain that fell in 1864, the wettest year observed, 36*2 

 inches fell during the tropical showers of six wet months, leaving 

 only 2*1 inches for the remainder of the year. 



The captives in Abyssinia still remain in prison, and there seems 

 little probability that either they or Captain Cameron, the British 

 Consul, will be liberated except by death. 



Towards the end of February last, the colony of Victoria was visited 

 by a day of frightful heat and hot wind. The thermometer in many 

 places stood very nearly at 100° in the shade ; and in Sandhurst it even 

 reached 105°. From the accounts we have received, we are unable to 

 state whether the heat was the cause or the effect of enormous bush 

 fires. The heat was accompanied by hot blasts of dense air, laden 

 with smoke and dust, which almost prostrated the whole population. 

 Fortunately, towards 5 o'clock p.m., the wind veered round to a mild 

 south breeze, with slight rain ; nevertheless the sky remained thick 

 with smoke, and towards night it reflected with appalling grandeur 

 the lurid glare of the distant bush fires. The destruction of crops 

 and produce by the fires has been enormous, and can scarcely as yet 

 be estimated. 



