i88o.] 
Correspondence. 
211 
hollow-jointed bamboos, with the peculiar glazed flint surface, 
but long trailing canes interlacing the forests, of many — perhaps 
more than a hundred — feet long. How long I do not know ; 
they seemed interminable. In one place I came to a cane brake 
said to be 16 miles long, through which passed the road, and 
which, for the mile or two I rode in it, was interlaced overhead 
by the canes — a species of natural arbour. If I am not mis- 
taken De Chaillu speaks of the canes interlacing the forests he 
visited. Either Mr. Wallace* must be in error or the flinty 
grasses I saw were not bamboos, yet they exadlly agree with 
the description contained in Baird’s “ Student’s Natural 
History.” 
I have no doubt Mr. Wallace is most accurate in his descrip- 
tions of Malayan and South American tropical products, but he 
seems to have fallen into an error in respedl to Tropical Africa. 
And this is the more curious if there be any reality in his half- 
uttered hypothesis (Malay Archipelago), that Celebes was once 
connected with the African continent. — I am, &c., 
S. B. 
EDMUND HALLEY. 
“In the ‘Journal of Science ’ (formerly called the ‘Quarterly 
Journal of Science,’ but now, having become monthly, styled as 
above) for this month we were surprised to read, in an article on 
‘ Edmund Halley, his Life and Work,’ that ‘ in 1720 he was ap- 
pointed Astronomer-Royal at Greenwich, in room of his old 
friend and colleague Flamsteed.’ Irony would indeed be out of 
place on such a subject, but we trust that the biography of the 
second Astronomer- Royal, which Prof. Pritchard is understood 
to be preparing, will throw some additional light upon the unfor- 
tunate and ever-to-be-regretted disputes between him and Flam- 
steed, which must always form a sad episode in the history of 
astronomy, leading as they did to feelings, on one side at least, 
the reverse of friendly.” — ( Athenceum , No. 2729, Feb. 14, 1880.) 
To the Editor of the Journal of Science. 
Sir, — T he above paragraph in the “ Athenaeum ” has been 
brought to my notice, and as the writer of the article in question 
I would take some notice of it. 
As you are aware, I did not pretend to give anything like an 
exhaustive monograph of Edmund Halley. The sketchy article 
