* 
130 The American Naturalist. [August, 
General Notes. 
GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVELS. 
Europe.—NeEusIEDLER Lakr.—Neusiedler Lake has for some 
time decreased in capacity, and it is now proposed to drain its remain- 
ing waters into the Raab by means of a canal. 
RECLAMATION OF THE ZUYDER ZEE.—The March issue of the Geo- 
graphical Journal contains an account of the engineering works pro- 
posed to be executed for the purpose of reclaiming the greater part of 
the Zuyder Zee. The work is to be carried out in sections, the first of 
which will fill in a bay north of the broad channel which will be left 
leading to the city of Amsterdam; while the second will comprise an 
extensive area south of that channel. 'The remaining sections will 
diminish the water area to the eastward. As a dam will be built across 
the Zee at its mouth the whole of the waters within will be fresh, and 
will be named the Ysel Meer, from the river of that name. "The scheme 
also provides for the enlargement on their land-fronts of the islands at 
the mouth of the Zuyder Zee. 
THE Pontine Marsnes.—Capt. von Doncet has brought forward a 
scheme for reclaiming the Pontine Marshes, which are exceedingly fertile, 
and capable of producing food for half a million of people. The area is six 
square miles, but the exhalations from them render sixteen square miles 
unhealthful, and the present population is only thirty. The projector 
proposes to eut off by peripheral canals the streams which enter from 
the surrounding higher ground, and to utilize the existing interior 
canals, the work of Pius VI. The surface of these marshes is of old 
soft elastic peat, ten feet thick at the Appian Way, over seventy feet 
deep at the foot of the mountains; this peat apparently fills an ancient 
sea area, as beneath it is a layer of clay with shells and sea-sand. Five 
thousand acres are too low to permit the natural fall to be made avail- 
able, and much of the area is, after the rains, covered with three feet of 
water, besides which, springs at the foot of the hills yield one and a 
half timesas much as might be expected to drain into the basin. 
Africa.—Ascent OF THE JUB OR JuBA.—Capt. Dundas has 
returned safely from what seems to have been a most perilous journey 
