418 General Notes. [ May, 
Stecker has sent home a detailed description of the country sur-_ 
rounding Massaua, together with meteorological observations, 
which will shortly be published—An expedition sent out by the 
French government from Senegal to the Niger, has reached 
Segou-Sikorro, on the Niger, and found the Sultan well disposed 
and willing to allow the French to navigate and trade on the 
Niger. Captain Gallieni, commanding the expedition, finds that 
near Bamaku, the water shed of the Niger and Senegal basins, is 
only afew miles from the former river and the water parting is so 
indistinctly marked, that during the rainy season the water flows 
sometimes into one river and sometimes into the other. Recent 
explorations by French travelers show that the western Sahara 
has considerable tracts of lands that can be reclaimed and ferti- 
lized by boring artesian wells, and where this has been done lux- 
uriant gardens planted with date, fig, and other fruit trees, and 
fields of barley have taken the place of stunted shrubs or bare, 
sandy soil. The land of Adrar in the south-west is placed like a 
long narrow island between two bands of sand and contains a 
considerable population. Yet while the skill of the French en- 
m 
have added much of late to our knowledge of this portion of 
Africa, their letters relating simply their advances from station to 
station, and often containing sad stories of misfortune, starvation, 
or death. t the same time permanent stations have been estab- 
lished in the interior and on Lake Taganyika, and more success” 
ful results may reasonably be expected in the future. 
:0: 
MICROSCOPY .! 
EXAMINATION oF METALLIFEROUs CLAys.— Mr. Melville At- 
wood, in a paper on the clays in the Comstock lode, read before 
the San Francisco Microscopical Society, describes as follows the 
method of separating and examining the gold-bearing fragments: 
first, to place them in a porcelain dish, pouring hot water over 
and keeping them in the water for several hours, stirring 0CC® 
sionally, till all the particles that would dissolve were taken UP by 
the water. Afterward I emptied the contents of the porcelain 
dish into a batéa, allowing everything that was dissolved to float 
away. By the batéa the pyritic matter and other heavy bodies 
? This department is edited by Dr. R. H. Ward, Troy, N. Y. 
