1024 General Notes. [ December, 
GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVELS.! 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOGRAPHICAL SECTION OF THE BRITISH 
AssociaTion.—The fifty-first meeting of the British Association 
for the Advancement of Science, held at York from the 31st of 
August to the 7th of September, was chiefly occupied in review- 
ing the progress of science in the various departments during the 
fifty years of the society’s existence. The address of the presi- 
dent of the geographical section, Sir J. D. Hooker was devoted 
to the growth of our knowledge of the Geographical Distribu- 
tion of Organic Beings. He briefly alluded to the unprecedently 
great advance made in the last fifty years in our knowledge of the 
unknown regions of the earth. 
“The veil has been withdrawn from the sources of the Nile 
and the lake systems of Central Africa have been approximately 
localized and outlined. Australia, never previously traversed, 
has been crossed and recrossed in various directions. New Guinea 
has had its coasts surveyed, and its previously utterly unknown 
interior has been here and there visited. The topography of 
Western China and Central Asia, which had been sealed books 
since the days of Marco Polo, has been explored in-many quarters. 
The ‘elevations of the highest mountains of both hemispheres have 
been accurately determined, and themselves ascended to heights 
ocean of the Arctic pole.” F 
A paper was read by Sir Richard Temple, On the Progress © 
_ our geographical knowledge of Asia during the last fifty years. 
_ “The area of Asia contains seventeen millions of English square 
_ miles. Out of this about two-thirds consists of mountains an 
_ table-lands whereof a large part is desert; and one-third of low- 
__ lands, wherein a small part is desert; the rest of the sent 
__ being arable, of which again a considerable portion is eT ; 
: Thus out of the whole area not more than one-sixth is under — 
ed by Exuis H. YarNaLt, Philadelphia. : 
