696 General Notes. [ November, 
the course of the Congo approached the equator, but it is now evident 
that the river can be reached by a short cut from the Albert Nyanza, 
or from Schweinfurth’s river Welle. This stream, if it should not prove 
a tributary of the Congo, may not impossibly be the upper portion of 
the Ogove, the last great river on the West African coast whose origin is 
a mystery. 
GEOGRAPHICAL News.— A new interest in Arctic Exploration has 
been excited in this country by the departure of Captain Howgate’s ves- 
sel, Florence,- for Cumberland Island, the first stopping-place on the 
way to Smith’s Sound. The Geographical Magazine is urging the con- 
tinuance and completion of polar discovery on the part of the English 
government, and says that four routes now remain for future expeditions. 
(1.) The Jones Sound route, the work of which will be to connect North 
Lincoln with Aldrich’s farthest, and to ascertain the limits of the Palæ- 
ocrystic sea in that direction. (2.) The East Greenland route, to connect 
Cape Bismarck with Beaumont’s farthest, and so complete the discovery 
of Greenland. (3.) The route of Franz Josef Land, to explore the 
northern side of the country discovered by Payer ; and (4) the Northeast 
Passage, by which a knowledge of the sea north of Siberia will be com- 
pleted, and Wrangell Land will be explored. On the whole the editor 
suggests that the East Greenland route is the best that can be selected for 
anew expedition. Lieutenant Weyprecht, who commanded the Austrian 
Polar Expedition that discovered Franz Josef, Land in 1874, and Count 
Wilczek, one of the promoters of that expedition, have announced to the 
Royal Society of Meteorology of Utrecht that they intend to undertake 
an expedition to the Arctic regions, which will be away for about twelve 
months, and that they intend to establish their station of observation in 
one of the northern havens of Novaya Zemlya. A translation of, Dr. 
Rink’s Danish Greenland, its People and its Products, the standard 
work on Greenland, has been published by H. S. King & Co., London, 
and is a very timely work. ; 
Several books on Turkey have appeared in London : Turkey in Eu- 
rope. By James Baker. Third edition (Cassell, Petter, & Galpin, Lon- 
don, Paris, and New York), 1877. Travels in the Slavonic Provinces 
of Turkey in Europe. By G. Muir Mackenzie and A. P. Irby, with a 
preface by the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M. P. In two volumes, 
second edition (London: Daldy, Isbister, & Co.), 1877. Montenegro, 
its People and their History. By the Rev. W. Denton, M. A. (Lon- 
don: Daldy, Isbister, & Co.), 1877. Handbook of the Seat of War. 
Edited by Alexander Mackay (London : Simkin, Marshall, & Co-), 1877. 
The preservation of forests in New Zealand is attracting attention, as 
the colonists, by indiscriminate waste of trees, are threatening future-dis- 
aster to the water supply, agriculture, and the health of the people. It ap- 
pears that Frnce has suffered cruelly from the effects of a long course of 
denudation, and is now trying energetically to retrieve the errors of the 
