POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



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Survey of New Zealand ; Biology — C. W. De 

 Vis, of Brisbane; Geography — A. C. Mac- 

 Donald, of Victoria ; Ethnology and Anthro- 

 pology — Rev. S. Ella, of New South Wales ; 

 Economic Science and Agriculture — H. C. L. 

 Anderson, of New South Wales; Engineer- 

 ing and Architecture — J. R. Scott, of Canter- 

 bury, New Zealand ; Sanitary Science and 

 Hygiene — A. Mault, of Tasmania ; Mental 

 Science and Education — Henry Laurie, of 

 the University of Melbourne. The associa- 

 tion has been in existence since 1888. The 

 four previous meetings have been held at 

 Sydney, Melbourne, Christehurch, and Ho- 

 bart. The association has grown steadily 

 since its beginning and now numbers about 

 nine hundred members. The season of the 

 meeting — when spring is passing into sum- 

 mer — is recommended as being one of the 

 most favorable to visit South Australia, and 

 particularly attractive to naturalists. 



Derelicts on the Ocean. — We gave sev- 

 eral months ago an account of the wander- 

 ings of the derelict schooner W. L. White, 

 which, after having been abandoned not far 

 from New York in the great blizzard of 

 March, 1888, went ashore ten months after- 

 ward near the Hebrides, after having drifted 

 five thousand miles back and forth on the 

 Atlantic Ocean. The history of several other 

 vessels pursuing a similar career may be 

 found in the bulletins of our Hydrographic 

 Office. The schooner Twenty-one Friends, 

 abandoned in March, 1885, one hundred and 

 sixty miles from Chesapeake Bay, drifted 

 two thousand miles in four months, and was 

 seen near Cape Finisterre at the end of eight 

 months. The Ethel M. Davis drifted four 

 thousand four hundred miles in three hun- 

 dred and seventy days, and the David W. 

 Hunt four thousand eight hundred miles in 

 three hundred and forty-seven days, during 

 which she was seen by forty-one passing 

 ships. According to the United States 

 Wreck Chart of the North Atlantic, there 

 were forty-five derelict vessels in that ocean, 

 and more than half of them were in the route 

 of the transatlantic line steamers. These 

 waifs are very dangerous, for their positions 

 and courses are unknown, they are under no 

 control, and may appear at any unexpected 

 moment, at night or in a fog, or in storms, 

 to crash into and sink whatever vessels they 



may meet. Possibly some of the steamers 

 that have been lost and left no record have 

 gone down after meeting with them. 



Indo-China. — The whole region of Indo- 

 China, as the Hon. G. N. Curzon, M. P., 

 pointed out in a lecture before the Royal 

 Geographical Society, is dominated by its 

 great rivers, and may be divided into the 

 mountain districts of the north, cleft by vast 

 gorges; and the low plains of the south, 

 mainly composed of alluvial deposits, where 

 the coast lands are steadily encroaching on 

 the sea. In the seventh century, Tongking, 

 now sixty miles inland, was on the coast. A 

 very remarkable feature, which gives parts 

 of the coast a beauty comparable with that 

 of the Inland Sea of Japan, is a broken belt 

 of limestone cut into curious, flat-topped sec- 

 tions of all sizes, and perforated by the sea 

 or rivers with many fantastic caves and tun- 

 nels. The masses of caverned rock rise to a 

 height of from fifty to five hundred feet, and 

 are best seen in the Bay of Along in Tong- 

 king. In An n am Mr. Curzon traveled to Hue 

 by the " Mandarin's Road," a track which is 

 carried over several cols by some skillful 

 engineering in the form of rock staircases. 

 Hue is a city of great interest, is beautifully 

 situated, and is near a number of magnifi- 

 cent ancient tombs. 



Mongol Waterworks. — The city of Au- 

 rungabad, India, is supplied with water by a 

 system constructed three hundred years ago 

 by Malik Umber, the Viceroy of Shah Jehan. 

 Though the water came regularly, no one in 

 recent times had determined the source of 

 the supply. All that was known was that 

 the water came from the stone image of a 

 bull situated seventy feet above the level of 

 the town, while further search was defeated 

 by the superstition of the natives. The mat- 

 ter has been recently investigated by Mr. 

 Beveridge, an engineer in the service of the 

 Nizam, who found that the Gya Mookh, as it 

 was called, was supplied by a pipe and a cov- 

 ered channel. This channel was traced up 

 for a considerable distance, but the work 

 was suspended on account of unhealthy ema- 

 nations and the difficulties interposed by 

 superstition. It was resumed by another 

 engineer, Mr. Massett, who found that the 

 channel crossed the Ursool River by a si- 



