phical section, under the presidency of Mr. Francis Galton-the incident which gave greater general interest and excitement to the meeting than any other. Mr. Stanley, the American traveller, just returned from his romantic African expedition, gave an account of his adventures in search of, and afterwards in company with, Dr. Livingstone. After describing his first meeting with the great explorer, whose probable loss the world had been lamenting, he continued, "The connexion between the Tanganyika and the Albert Nyanza lakes was a subject of interest to all geographers before I went to Central Africa. I recollect the very many hypotheses raised upon this subject. Livingstone, even, was almost sure that the Albert Nyanza was no more than a lower Tanganyika; and, indeed, he had a very good reason for believing so. He had perceived a constant flow northward. All the Arabs and natives persisted in declaring that the Rusizi ran out of Lake Tanganyika. . . . . Before I arrived at Ujiji he had never been to the north end of the Tanganyika; but as soon as I mentioned the interest and importance attached to it, and offered to escort him thither, he lost no time in preparing for the journey." In the end the travellers discovered that they had been mistaken as to the outlet from the northern end of the lake: the Rusizi proved to be a large river flowing into the lake, and not from it. "The alluvial plain through which the river makes its exit into the lake is about twelve miles wide, and narrows into a point after a length of fifteen miles, or a narrow valley folded in by the eastern and western ranges, which here meet at a distance of a couple of miles. The western range, which inclines to the eastward, halts abruptly, and a portion of it runs sharply north-westward, while the eastern range inclines westward, and, after overlapping the western range, shoots off north-westward, where it is lost amid a perfect jumble of mountains." Dr. Livingstone's theory that the Albert Nyanza, the lake to which Sir Samuel Baker has traced the White Nile, is fed from Lake Tanganyika, is thus disproved; but he still hopes to show that the true source of the Nile is to be found in the great chain of lakes between the 5th and 10th degrees of S. latitude, and west of Tanganyika, some of which he has himself discovered, while he has heard of others from the natives. In this district he now remains, bent upon establishing the truth of this grand discovery. "He told me to tell you," Mr. Stanley concluded, "that he wants no companion now; that he requires no more stores; that when he has satisfied himself of the sources of the Nile, he will come home, and give you such reports as will satisfy you. With plenty of stores, and over seventy good men well armed and equipped, he is now en route to Ufipa, healthy and strong, and as enthusiastic as ever." Some extracts from Dr. Livingstone's despatches were then read, which gave rise to an animated discussion.

The enterprising traveller's belief that he is on the point of solving the great mystery of the Nile is not shared by geographers at home, as will be seen by the following extracts from Sir Henry Rawlinson's Address to the Royal Geographical Society, delivered in November. He thus described the discoveries of Dr. Livingstone:-"The accessions to our knowledge of African geography obtained during Livingstone's wanderings in the Manyema country are very considerable. He had in his previous journeys identified but one single river, which he traced through a chain of lakes and under the various names of Chambezi, Luapula, and Lualaba, from the Muchinga Mountains,

north of Nyassa, past the capital of Cazembe to the borders of the Manyema country west of Tanganyika; and all our speculations were, therefore, directed to the settlement of the question whether this lacustrine river, which, as we supposed, drained all Central Africa, was really the head-waters of the Nile-entering the Nile system either through Tanganyika or Albert Nyanza-or whether it turned to the west as an affluent of the Congo; but the question has recently been much enlarged, and, if I may be allowed to say so, at the same time simplified; for Dr. Livingstone has now dis. covered that there is not one but three Lualabas, all rivers of the first class, running through lakes in nearly parallel courses, and commingling their waters a few degrees south of the Equator, where they form a gigantic stream about two miles in width, and of such depth and rapidity that its flow of water in the dry season has been calculated, at the very lowest estimate, at 124,000 cubic feet per second. Of this triple water-system, which, running north and south from 12 degrees south latitude to the Equator, drains an area of nearly 10 degrees of latitude, the central river, named the Lufira, had been already named and described by the Pombeiras, who crossed it in a canoe near its source, while the third or more westerly stream, the Kassabi or Loké, called lower down the Lomamé, and well known to the Portuguese, had been visited by Livingstone himself in 1855, though, strangely enough, he does not seem to have recognized his old friend of the mountains in the magnificent river to which he gave the name of Young's Lualaba. It may here be noted that, although the head-streams of the Lufira and Kassabi were discovered years ago by the Portuguese, to Livingstone, at any rate, belongs the credit of connecting those head-streams with the great basis of Equatorial Africa. Livingstone's farthest point on the Lualaba was ascertained by him to be in about 4 deg. south latitude, but the longitude of the position was not so easily determined. He had estimated by dead reckoning that he was 5 deg. west of Ujiji, or in longitude 25 deg. east; but a lunar observation, which he seems to have worked out at a later period, placed him two degrees farther to the east, or in about longitude 27 deg. There can be no reasonable doubt that this great water-system of Central Africa belongs to the Congo and not to the Nile. The proofs of the identity of the Lualaba and the Congo, derived from a comparison of height-measurements, of volume of water, of the periodical rains and rise of the rivers, &c., have been put together very clearly in a paper by Dr. Behm, which has just appeared in the current number of Petermann's Mittheilungen, and many arguments arising from local information, as well as from coincidences of natural history and ethnology, might be added in corroboration. The only impediment, indeed, to a full and clear understanding on this point is the remarkable fact that, although Livingstone had followed down the gradual slope of the Lualaba from the high plateau where it rises, 5000 feet or 6000 feet above the sea level, to a point where the barometer gave an elevation of only 2000 feet-that is, to a point depressed 1000 feet below the parallel Nile basin to the eastward; and although the constant trending of the waters to the west haunted him with misgivings, still he clung tenaciously to his old belief that he must be upon the track of the Nile, and speculated on the possibility of the great river he was pursuing debouching by the Bahr-el-Ghazal. It must be borne in mind, however, that Livingstone in his African solitude had no knowledge of Schweinfurth's discoveries. He had no idea that one

or perhaps two water-sheds intervened between the Lualaba and the head-waters of the Bahr-el-Ghazal; nor does he seem to be aware that his great river at Nyangwé contained nineteen times the volume of water contributed by the western affluent of the White Nile. When this revelation breaks on him it is not too much to suppose that he will abandon his Nile theory and rest satisfied with the secondary honour-if indeed it be secondary-of having discovered and traced the upper course of the Congo, which is emphatically called by the natives the great river' of Africa."

In accordance with this theory, Sir Henry proceeded to state that an expedition has been set on foot among Dr. Livingstone's friends-to be called "The Livingstone Congo Expedition "--which is to ascend the Congo and endeavour to penetrate to the Equatorial lake where Livingstone's rivers are lost, and in the vicinity of which, towards the close of next year, the great traveller ought to be found. It is also proposed to send an expedition from Zanzibar, under a young naval officer, Lieutenant Cameron, to take stores and supplies to Livingstone by way of Tanganyika, and also "to examine the geography of the lake region of Equatorial Africa, which is now one of the chief African problems remaining unsolved."

Whilst on the subject of geographical research, we must briefly notice the publication this year of the "Ordnance Survey of the Peninsula of Sinai," by Captains C. W. Wilson and H. E. Palmer, R.E. The project was first started in 1867 by the late Rev. Pierce Butler, in conjunction with Captain Palmer, and the "Sinai Survey Fund" was set on foot with the patronage of the Geographical Society. Mr. Butler died before the undertaking was fully organized, but his place was filled by a learned Biblical geographer, the Rev. George Williams, and in the autumn of 1868 a wellequipped expedition, so composed as to represent all the necessary branches of research, left England for Sinai, where they 'spent about six months in active and arduous work. The results of the labours are now before us in the above-named splendid work, consisting of a folio volume of letterpress and plates, three volumes of photographs, and a portfolio of maps, plans, and sections.

The interest of the work centres mainly on the identification of Scripture topography attempted in it. Great attention was devoted to fixing the locality of the Mount of the Law, which, notwithstanding the arguments of some comparative geographers to the contrary, must clearly be held to lie within the limits of the Peninsula. It would seem that five mountains have been severally named for this honour: of these three have been set aside, and of the remaining two, Jebel Musá and Jebel Serbál, the explorers have unanimously fixed upon the former as the true locality. We have not space to follow the interesting investigations into the probable localities of the Red Sea crossing, the Wilderness of Sinai, and other topics. The surveys and maps, which were executed with the greatest accuracy, were divided into two branches-namely, special detailed surveys, on the six-inch scale, of Jebel Musá and Jebel Serbál, and a general geographical survey, on the half-inch scale, of the country between those monntains and Suez, "so extended as to embrace all possible routes by which the children of Israel could have approached from Egypt," and covering an area of about 3200 square miles. An interesting paper was read at a meeting of the Society of Biblical Archæology by Mr. George Smith, of the British Museum; the subject was a

Cuneiform Inscription, containing, as is asserted, a Chaldean account of the Deluge, inscribed upon some of the clay tablets discovered some fifteen years ago in the site of the old palace of Nineveh, which have been deposited in the British Museum. The Cuneiform account, Mr. Smith said, agrees with the Biblical narrative in making the Deluge a Divine punishment for the wickedness of the world; but the minor differences in the details show that the inscription embodies a distinct and independent tradition. Sir Henry Rawlinson supposed the tablets themselves might date from the time of Sardanapalus in the sixth or seventh century B.C., and might be copies of much more ancient documents. We understand, however, that subsequent consideration has induced Sir Henry to suspend his judgment as to the correctness of the meaning put upon the inscription.

An expedition was fitted out by Government, at the suggestion of Dr. Carpenter, for the purpose of making a scientific inquiry into the physical and biological conditions of the Deep Sea. The vessel set sail in December of this year, and her mission was thus described by Admiral Richards, hydrographer to the Admiralty, at a meeting of the Geographical Society. The Challenger," he said, was a vessel fitted out to make a voyage of discoveries and scientific research. One great object of the expedition was to investigate those mysterious regions which lie beneath the surface of the sea. In that respect the voyage of the "Challenger" would be different from any other that had ever been undertaken either by this or any other country. Twelve months would possibly be occupied in investigation in the Atlantic Ocean, and the ship would then, he believed, go down to that great ice-barrier at the edge of the Antarctic Continent, and endeavour to abstract the secrets which lie hidden there. It would afterwards proceed to Australia and New Zealand, and then to the Coral Sea; subsequently to Japan, the North Pacific Ocean, North-west America, and the South Pacific. He hoped the "Challenger" would return to our shores in about three years.

PART II.

CHRONICLE

OF REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES

IN 1872.

JANUARY.

3. LION-TAMING.-A shocking occurrence took place at Bolton to-day, when a lion-tamer, named Massarti, was worried to death in a den of lions. Massarti was going through a performance, about half-past ten, with five male lions, when one of the lions struck him with its paw, and he fell upon one knee. He turned round and struck at it with a sword he had in his hand, when another lion placed its paw upon his legs, holding him down, and tearing the leopard's skin from his breast. Four of the lions then attacked him, but Massarti kept cool, and struck at them with his sword. They knocked him to the other end of the caravan, when Massarti fired his revolver, which was loaded with blank cartridge, three times. among them. While this was going on the greatest excitement prevailed among the spectators, who greatly retarded the authorities in their efforts to rescue the lion-tamer. This was an extra performance, and it had not been deemed requisite to prepare hot irons, as is customary, before Massarti entered the den. Irons were heated, however, but nearly ten minutes elapsed before the man could be got out. He was frightfully mangled, the back part of his scalp being torn away, and lumps of flesh bitten out of his thighs. He raised his head to show that he was still alive, and remarked on his way to the infirmary that "he was done for." He died almost directly he was admitted to that institution.

4. THE PRINCE OF WALES'S CONVALESCENCE is so well established that Sir William Jenner was enabled to leave Sandringham yesterday, and Sir James Paget to-day. Drs. Gull and Lowe continue in attendance, but their services are not so unremittingly required.

6. ASSASSINATION OF JAMES FISK.-This day, in New York, James

A