696 General Notes. [July, 
that believe in progress; and these scientific journals for the 
young are one of the agencies by which this state of things is to 
be brought about. 
——:0:—— 
GENERAL NOTES. 
GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVELS! 
Arrica.— The Sahara—Dr. Oscar Lenz has published his 
work on “ Timbuktu” and is preparing to set out on a new expe- 
dition. His exploration of 1879-80 comprised (1) Marocco and 
the Atlas ranges as far as the Draa basin, and (2) the Western 
Sahara. Dr. Lenz traveled with only two interpreters and a trusty 
Maroccan attendant, yet thanks to a letter of recommendation 
from the Sultan of Marocco, and his assumption of the character 
of a Mussulman physician, he passed safely through the fanatical 
tribes on the route. The stony and sandy tracts of the Western 
Sahara are produced by the weathering of sandstone, quartz and 
carboniferous limestones, and have a mean elevation of from 800 
to 1000 feet. Dried-up watercourses, with deep eroded channels, 
radiate from the central highlands north and north-east to the 
Mediterranean, east to the Nile, south to the Tsad and Niger, and 
west to the Atlantic. The conclusion seems to be that up to 
comparatively recent times the Sahara was a well-watered and 
wooded region, mostly inhabited by pastoral and agricultural 
communities, the descendants of more primitive peoples who 
were contemporary with Palzolithic and Neolithic man elsewhere. 
In the Taudeni district, about 20° N., under the meridian of Tim- 
buktu, Dr. Lenz found some well-worked greenstone implements. 
Gerhard Rohlfs has found similar objects as far east as the Kufara 
oasis south of. Tripoli. The Asiatic camel is a comparatively 
recent intruder. The crocodile still survives in many of the pools 
and lakelets which here and there mark the course of mighty 
Streams. Dr. Lenz believes the desiccation to have taken place 
during the historic period, and attributes it largely to the reckless 
destruction of the woodlands. As vegetation disappeared so did 
moisture, the large fauna became extinct, and the settled popula- 
tions were succeeded by nomad Berbers and Semites. The forti- 
fications of Timbuktu were razed upon its capture by the Fulahs 
in 1826, and since then it has been a purely commercial town, 
but a constant bone of contention between the Tuariks and the 
Fulahs, which levy dues but leave the administration ir the hands 
of the Kahia. Dr. Lenz affiliates the Fulahs to the Nubas, but 
A. H. Keane, in his review of the work, in Mature, considers this 
_anerror. The Fulahs are distinctly non-Negro, and Dr. Lenz 
_ Notices the resemblance to Europeans of full-blood specimens. 
~ M. Giraud’s Expedition —M. V. Giraud, in his account of two 
~ years among the Central African lakes, delivered before the Geo- 
le ee This department is edited by W. N. Locktncton, Philadelphia. 
