1886. ] Geography and Travels. ay 
ant services to science. In 1817 the French institute elected 
him a corresponding member, and after this honors and ap- 
plause followed from his own countrymen. His assistant, 
Captain Everest, discovered that Lacaille’s meridional arc, at the 
Cape of Good Hope, was in error through the deflection of the 
plumb-line at the ends of the arc, under the influence of the at- 
traction of the neighboring mountains, and thus became aware of 
the necessity of placing astronomical stations where this cause 
would not be active. Everest introduced great improvements 
into the methods of the survey, which, before Lambton’s death, 
had been extended in its scope to embrace the whole of India, 
and his methods were followed until the completion of the princi- 
pal triangulation. Many of the forest regions of India are most 
pestilential. Native troops mutinied at being taken into the God- 
avery basin, for fifty years the chain of triangles passing through 
it remained untouched, and its execution cost the life of the officer 
in charge. The Terai, at the base of the Nepalese Himalayas, 
was still more formidable, yet, owing to the refusal of the Ne- 
palese government to permit Europeans to enter their territory, a 
connecting chain of triangles had to be carried along its 500 
miles, necessitating the clearance of some 2000 miles of line 
through forest and jungle, and the construction of over 100 towers 
to overlook the earth’s curvature. e mortality was greater 
than in many a famous battle. In 1843 Everest was succeeded 
by Waugh, who retired in 1861, and the last chain of the princi- 
pal triangulation was completed in 1882. 
The two longitudinal arcs first measured in India were employ- 
ed by Colonel Clarke in his last investigation of the figure of the 
earth, and General Walker stated his belief that they are the only 
twoarcs sufficiently accurate to be thus used. These investigations 
show that the equator has much less ellipticity than was formerly 
believed, and that the major axis is 8° 15’ west of Greenwich, 
instead of 15° 34’ east of it, as was previously supposed. The 
French meter, supposed to be a ten-millionth part of the earth’s 
meridional quadrant, is now known to be nearly ,isth part less 
the magnitude it was intended to represent. i 
Mr. Hosie’s Travels in China—At the recent meeting of the 
British Association Mr. A. Hosie gave an account of three 
Journeys in Southwestern China made by him since the beginning 
of 1882. The first was through Southern Ssu-ch’uan and North- 
ern Kweichou to its capital, Kwei-yang-Fu, westward to Yun- 
nan Fu, then through Northern Yunnan and along the Nan-kuang 
river to the Yang-tsze, where he took boat to Ch’ung-ch’ing, 
starting-point. In 1883 he passed to Ch’éng-tu, the capital of 
Ssu-ch’uan, by way of the brine and petroleum wells of Tzu-liv-» 
ching, then through the country of the Lolos, then by Ning-yuan, : 
in a valley famous as the habitat of the white-wax insect, to and a 
through the mountainous Cain-du of Marco Polo, inhabited in 
