1008 General Notes. 
GENERAL NOTES. 
GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL. 
GENERAL.—THE VOYAGES AND FATE or La PEROUSE.— 
Apropos of the centenary of the death of La Perouse, the Bulletin of 
the Geographical Society of France gives a summary of the voyages 
of that unfortunate navigator. The Boussole and the Astrolabe, 
under his command, left Brest August 1, 1785, doubled Cape Horn 
on February 8 of the next year, reached the Sandwich Islands in 
May, made the coast of America near Mount St. Elias on June 23, 
followed it to Monterey, and thence crossed the Pacific to Macao. 
On April 9, 1787, the expedition started again to reconnoitre the 
Japanese Isles and the coast of Tartary. The island of Dagelet 
was discovered May 27; the strait of La Perouse, between Sagha- 
lien and Jesso, soon after ; and on December 9 the vessels anchored 
at Mauna, one of the Navigator group. Here M. de Langle, the 
commander of the Boussole, together with the naturalist Lamanon 
and ten men, were surrounded by the natives and killed. The last 
letter that reached France from La Perouse was dated February 7, 
1788. The story of the discovery of the remains of the expedition 
at Vanikoro, in the Fiji, is told by Vice Admiral Paris, the last 
survivor of the expedition sent out in 1826 under the orders of 
Dumont d’Urville. The Astrolabe, commanded by this captain, 
was only a small transport bearing the name of a corvette. At 
Vanikoro information was obtained that five bronze cannon 
and some skulls of Europeans were in possession of the natives, 
and also that a vessel had been wrecked there and its crew mas- 
sacred. The débris of the frigate Astrolabe was finally found 
opposite the village of Paiou. A monument to the memory ° 
La Perouse was raised upon the islet of Manevai. 
Asta.—Tuer ErunograpHy or Hrnpustay.—F. v Hellwald 
(Ausland, Nos. 31-35) has an article upon the ethnography of Hin- 
dustan. The 252,000,000 of inhabitants belong to four races, 
black, yellow, Turanian, and Aryan. The primitive popula 
consisted of two types, one Malay, still to be found in the south an 
on the Malabar coast; the other Semitic, still existing in the Nil- 
ghirries and in the north of India. This primitive population was 
driven back by Turanians descending the Brahmaputra valley A 
and these invasions precede the historical period. The mixture © 
these Turanians with the indigenes gave rise to the Protodravidas, 
1 Edited by W. N. Lockington, Philadelphia, Pa. | 
