1885. ] Geography and Travels. 489 
scribe them as more civilized than the Mois of Cochin China. 
Thev are warlike, intelligent and industrious, and make their own 
arms. Practically, they are independent, though the Annamites 
profess to appoint their chiefs. The country is rich in minerals, 
and some gold fields are worked by Chinese, who permit no 
stranger to approach. e commission to investigate the pos- 
sibility of a canal across the Isthmus of Krao, Malacca, has ex- 
plored a part of the peninsula before unknown to Europeans. 
They were conducted to a large inland sea, called Tale-Sab (the 
name seems identical with Tonle’-Sap, in Cambodia). This lake 
is forty-five miles long and twelve wide, and has numerous small 
islands covered with the nests of sparrows. The state of Sam-Sam, 
composed of mestizos, or half-caste Malays and Siamese, a popu- 
lation somewhat inclined to piracy, exists at about 7° 14’ N. lat. 
——Mr. Mueller’s reconnaissance survey between Cascade plateau 
and Lake McKerrow, on the west coast of the middle island, 
New Zealand, has shown that a great part of the Hope range is 
auriferous, while traces of gold occur along the whole length of 
Gorge river. The most remarkable geological feature is the 
Olivine range, a red-violet mass devoid of almost every trace of 
vegetation from about 1000 feet above the Cascade river. 
Evurope.—Luropean Notes—The Norwegians have discovered 
several new islands to the east of King Karl or Wiche land. In 
1884 the west side of Spitzbergen was blocked by a belt of land- 
ice, the whole summer through, while the east side, which is 
usually blocked, was more open than for many years. The prevail- 
ing direction of the winds appear to cause these changes. Observa- 
tions prove that the level of the shores of the Baltic is changing with 
considerable rapidity, the northern shore rising, while the south- 
ern is sinking. The northern part of Sweden has risen seven feet 
in the last 134 years, but the rise diminishes southward until at 
the Naze it is only one foot, and at the island of Bornholm 
nothing. The line of equilibrium passes along the islands of 
Bornhohm and Gothland. The Brussels National Institute ot 
Geography is now publishing a fac-simile reproduction of the 
plans of a hundred Belgian towns drawn up between 1550 and 
1565, by J. de Deventer, at the command of Charles V and Philip 
II, of Spain. The originals are divided between the libraries at 
Brussels and Madrid. 
America.—Physical Aspect of Brazil—The greater part of 
Brazil is an elevated plateau, having a main elevation of from one 
to more than three thousand feet. This great plateau is bounded 
northward by the great Amazonian depression, westward by 
basin of the Paraguay, which is continued northward by that of 
the Guaporé, a tributary of the Madeira, and all along the ocean 
border by a narrow strip of coast. North of the great Amazonian 
valley rises a second smaller pleateau, continuous with that of 
