264 The American Naturalist. [March, 
General Wotes. 
GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVELS. 
AFRICAN VoLcaNnors—In 1891, when Emin Pasha started west 
from Victoria Nyanza on the journey that ended in his violent death, 
he and his comrade, Dr. Stuhlman, were the first white men to see the 
big mountain Mfumbiro, 120 miles from the lake which Captain 
Speke, many years before, had placed on his map on native informa- 
tion. They found that the Mfumbiro was not an isolated cone, but the 
most eastern of a hitherto unknown range of volcanic origin. Their 
first purpose was to determine the outlines of Lake Albert Edward, and 
they did not stop to explore these mountains; but Dr. Stuh]man sent 
home an interesting report of the natives that Virunga, the most 
western summit of the chain, was a fire mountain, from whose top 
smoke was often seen to issue, and from which noises were heard like 
the bellowing of cattle. 
On December 8th a cablegram reached Europe from Count von 
Gotzen, the German explorer, announcing his arrival on the lower 
Congo, after crossing Africa from east to west. About the same time 
a letter he had written in Central Africa, in June last, arrived. It 
contained brief but interesting detail of his visit to Mount Virunga. 
There have been reports of plutonic activity among the Rif Mountains 
in northwestern Morocco, but the hostile natives have prevented inves- 
tigation. The subterranean forces that formed the great trough and 
piled up mountains of lava and ashes east of the great lakes show, by 
solfataras, hot springs and other phenomena, that they are not yet 
entirely spent. But until the discovery of Mount Virunga, no active 
volcano was known to exist in Africa. 
While still far away Count von Gotzen saw a thin column of smoke 
ascending from the principal crater, and later he found that the rim 
of this orifice is 11,400 feet above the sea. The volcano, therefore, is 
not a snow mountain, and is not so tall as its nearest neighbor on the 
east, which, according to Stuhlman, is about 13,000 feet high. It took 
von Gotzen several days to force a passage through the dense forest 
and to scale the steep mountain side. At last he stood upon the edge 
of the crater and looked down upon a most interesting spectacle. 
