1084 : General Notes. [November, 
work of his predecessors. From Cape Guir or Ghir to the Al- 
gerian frontier the length of the great Atlas range was known to 
be 435 miles, but only four points had been determined by pre- 
vious itineraries. . de Foucauld crossed the chain at several 
new points, of which he determined the altitude, besides journey- 
ing 185 miles along the base of the range, studying the orography 
of the country. The main range is flanked by parallel lines of 
elevation. There is in the north a chain of mountains 185 miles 
long, which bears the names of Djebel-Ait-Seri and Djebel-Beni- 
Uaghain, and in the south there is first of all the Little Atlas, 
and further south the strange outline of the Djebel-Bani range. 
In Dec., 1883, M. Foucauld touched the Wady Dhra’a to the 
south of Tattas. It was dry. Later on he ‘saw it further to the 
north-east, in the district of Mezquita, where it flows through 
plantations of date-palms. The part of this river indicated on 
Dr. Rohlfs’ maps is by M. de Foucauld placed one degree fur- 
ther west. M. H. Duveyrier, the writer of the report of M. 
Foucauld’s journey, is now traveling in Morocco. 
African News.—The Rev. G. Grenfell has contributed to the 
Royal Geographical Society a chart of the Mobangi, which proves 
to be a great navigable stream, flowing nearly from north to 
south across the blank on our present maps of Africa between 
the sources of the Benue and Shari to the Congo. Mr. Grenfell 
- ascended this river from its junction with the Congo, in a delta 
extending from 26 to 42 minutes south of the equator, to 4° 27 
N. latitude. Throughout the whole district it is a magnificent 
stream, with a mean depth of twenty-five feet, and at the furthest 
point it was still an open water-way. The country around is richly 
wooded and seems fertile, and the banks are more densely popu- 
lated than those of the Congo. Itis full of islands. Professor 
Ratzel, in Petermann’s Mitteilungen for July, seeks to show 
how misleading it is to color a map of Africa with definite politi- 
boundaries. The state of culture in Africa is as varied as th 
ethnology, and these stages of culture are the prime element in 
the so-called political geography of Africa. Professor Ratzel 
divides Africa into twelve “State-forming” peoples, under the 
two great sections of North African and Soudan States, and 
different to that followed by Mr. Jos. Thomson, via Chagga and 
the Masai country, to the eastern shores of Victoria Nyanza.—— 
_ Some Swedish merchants have purchased a tract of land in the 
— Cam ns, and have established a considerable trade with the 
natives. Sig. Buonfanti has published a reply to the doubts of 
Herr G. A. Krause r ing his journey across the Sahara and 
estern Sudan to Guinea. The writer’s letter to the Bolletini 
ie Italian Geographical Society is dated May 6th, on board 
