286 General Notes. [March, 
ter—perhaps volcanic. A new map of Saghalin, prepared by 
M. Nikitine, shows that island to be considerably larger than was 
supposed. While M. Reclus gave the area as 63,600 square kilome- 
ters, M. Venukoff calculates that 73,529 is a nearer approximation. 
It has been hitherto thought that the Gilbert islands were fast 
wearing away by the action of the sea during western gales. The 
belief was based upon the absence of the lee or western reef on 
some islands, and the anchorage afforded on the lee side of others, 
but a trader who has resided four years on Peru or Francis island 
states that when he came he could pass through the reef passage 
with a loaded boat at all states of the tide, whereas now the pas- 
sage is dry at low water. From this and other indications it is 
believed that the island has risen two feet in the four years. 
Arrica.—Results of the Journey of Mr. Jos. Thomson.—West of 
Mombasa, on passing the Rabai hills, lies the undulating country 
of Duruma, densely covered with bush and tangle and thorny 
scrab. The miserable natives of this district are in perpetual 
dread of famine and of the spears of the Masai. At three days 
march from Mombasa an uninhabited country is reached, and by 
the fifth day a glaring sterile red sand marks the change from 
sandstone to schists and gneiss, thorns and gnarled trees replace 
the bush, and the land is flat. This waterless uninhabited wilder- 
ness extends from Usambara and Paré in the south to Ukambni 
and the Galla country in the north, and from Duruma in the east, 
to the volcano of Kilimanjaro westward; broken only by the 
mountains of Teita, arising like precipitous islands in a muddy 
sea to from three to seven thousand feet. On the western side of 
this desert, and somewhat eastward of the south side of Kiliman- 
jaro, lies the district of Taveta, a bit of tropical forest on the 
banks of the snow-fed Lumi. The natives are a mixture of the 
Bantu tribe of Wa-Taveta with Masai who have been forced by 
the loss of their cattle to an agricultural life, and are a manly, 
pleasant, and honest, though immoral race. Kilimanjaro, the cen- 
tral mass of this region, has two summits, one the grand dome or 
crater of Kibo, towering above the forest-clad pediment of Chaga 
(where Mr. H. H. Johnstone is now residing with the chief Man- 
- dara) to a height above the sea about 18,880 feet ; the other the 
pinnacle of Kimawenzi (16,250 feet) with its dark rocks and jagged 
outlines. The base of the mountain near Taveta is dotted-with 
~ parasitic cones, and a few miles to the north of Taveta lies the 
_ small crater lake of Chala, in the center of a crater about two 
and a halt miles across. The southern slopes of Kilimanjaro are 
(according to Mr. Jos. Thomson, from whose recital before the 
Royal Geographical Society these particulars are taken) carved 
_ Into varied scenes of hill and dale by numerous streams, which 
__ Tise high upon the flanks, and upon Mr. Thomson’s map are shown 
_ as united into one river further south. The Lumi falls into Lake 
