214 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. IV., No. 83. 



rewards the painf ul sufferings and losses of the party. 

 Lieut. P. H. Kay, U.S.A., has also rectified many 

 details of the map about Point Barrow, and dis- 

 covered a range of hills, which he has named the 

 Meade Mountains, running east from Cape Lisburne, 

 from which at least two streams, unmarked, flow 

 into the Polar Sea. We may expect similar service 

 from the Italian parties at Patagonia, and from the 

 Germans in South Georgia. Since the voyage of the 

 Challenger, no marine researches have been more 

 fruitful of results than those of the Talisman and 

 the Dacia. The first was employed last year by the 

 French government, to examine the Atlantic coasts 

 from Kochefort to Senegal, and to investigate the 

 hydrography and natural history of the Cape Verde, 

 Canary, and Azores archipelagoes. The other ship, 

 with her companion the International, was a private 

 adventure, with the commercial purpose of ascertain- 

 ing the best line for a submarine telegraph from 

 Spain to the Canaries. These last two made some 

 five hundred and fifty soundings, and discovered 

 three shoals, one of them with less than fifty fathoms 

 of water over it, between the continent of Africa and 

 the islands. If we draw a circle passing through 

 Cape Mogador, Teneriffe, and Funchal, its centre 

 will mark very nearly this submarine elevation: the 

 other two lie to the north of it. The Talisman found 

 in mid-ocean but sixteen hundred and forty fathoms, 

 among soundings previously set down as over two 

 thousand fathoms. 



Gen. Lefroy then spoke of the extension of rail- 

 ways in Mexico, South America, Africa, and Asia, 

 and of the agreement to refer local time on this con- 

 tinent to a succession of first meridians, one hour 

 apart. The next step will not be long delayed : that 

 is, the agreement of the civilized world to use one 

 first meridian; Paris, Ferrol, Washington, Rio de 

 Janeiro, gracefully, as we venture to hope, giving 

 that precedency to Greenwich, which is demanded 

 by the fact that an overwhelming proportion of the 

 existing nautical charts of all nations, and of maps 

 and atlases in most of them, already refer their 

 longitudes to that meridian. No other change would 

 be so easy, or so little felt. 



THE GENERAL STATISTICS OF THE 

 BRITISH EMPIRE* 



We will group our statistics under the following 

 headings : 1°. The area consisting of widely extended 

 regions; 2°. The inhabitants of these many lands; 

 3°. The works of man as they are displayed in this 

 vast theatre of action. 



First, then, the area of the British Empire may be 

 set down at more than eight and a half millions of 

 square miles. Out of this total, there are only a hun- 

 dred and twenty thousand square miles in the United 

 Kingdom. There are a million and a half of square 



1 Abstract, of an address to the economic science arid statis- 

 tics section of the British association at Montreal, Aug. 28, 1884, 

 by Sir Richard Temple, Bart., G-.C.S.L, CLE., D.C.L., LL.D., 

 F.R.Gr.S., president of the section. 



miles in India; and the remainder, or seven millions, 

 belong to the colonies and to the scattered posses- 

 sions. 



But there are other regions which have fallen, or 

 are falling, under its political control more or less, 

 such as Egypt, including a part of the Egyptian Su- 

 dan, some districts in southern Arabia, a part of 

 Borneo, Zululand, the Transvaal, Afghanistan, and 

 Beluchistan. Thus the total area, directly or in- 

 directly, under the authority of the British empire, 

 may be taken at nearly ten millions of square miles, 

 or about one-fifth of the fifty millions of square miles 

 composing the habitable globe. 



As might be expected in an empire whereof the 

 real basis of power is maritime, the coast-line is of 

 an extraordinary length, to be measured by about 

 28,500 miles, with forty-eight large harbors. For the 

 whole of this length, marine surveys have been pre- 

 pared. But greatness does not depend on area alone, 

 and there is a vast range in the scale of value for 

 lands. Out of the ten millions of square miles, hardly 

 one-fifth is cultivated or occupied, in the widest use 

 of the term 'occupation.' In India, which is popu- 

 larly, though not quite correctly, supposed to be 

 thickly populated, the cultivable waste is not less 

 than a quarter of a million of square miles. 



In the second place, respecting the inhabitants, 

 the total population amounts to 305,000,000 of souls 

 in those regions which are included directly in the 

 empire. This mass of humanity is composed of 

 many diverse nationalities, a cardinal distinction be- 

 tween which is that of religion. Christianity, the 

 religion of the dominant race, is professed by one- 

 seventh of the whole. The religion which includes 

 the largest number is Hinduism. There are 188,- 

 000,000 of Hindus; and it may, indeed, be said that 

 the whole Hindu race is subject to the British crown. 

 The Hindus, then, form more than a half of the total 

 population in the empire. The number of Buddhists 

 is not considerable, amounting to about 7,000,000. 

 The imperial area is, on the whole, but sparsely 

 populated, with an average of only thirty-three per- 

 sons to the square mile, notwithstanding the mighty 

 aggregate of the people, as the population is most 

 unequally distributed. 



The third and last heading relates to the works of 

 man, his riches and power, his industrial and com- 

 mercial operations. 



One, among the primary tests of national resources, 

 is the public revenue. The total of yearly revenue 

 and receipts, governmental and local, amounting to 

 £264,000,000 sterling, is unequalled, but falls at the 

 moderate rate of one and a quarter pounds sterling 

 per head of the total of British subjects. There is a 

 large revenue received throughout the empire for local 

 purposes. This income (including various receipts, 

 but excluding loans) amounts to hardly less than 

 £61,000,000 sterling yearly; and the greater part is 

 levied by direct taxation. 



Another test of power relates to the provision for 

 external defence and internal protection. Now the 

 men trained to arms in the British empire may be 

 stated at 850,000, including the regular British forces 



