territory on the Meru lake that belonged in Livingstone's time to the powerful Casembe. Mr. Arnot has been furnished with means for prosecuting his work still farther; and the Royal Geographical Society intrusted to him the proceeds of the Murchison Grant for 1889, to be used in procuring a suitable present for Chitambo, chief of the Ilala country, in consideration of the assistance given by him to those who had charge of the work of carrying Livingstone's body and effects to the coast. The Lomami, one of the great southern tributaries of the Congo, was explored for some distance by Rev. Mr. Grenfell; but its upper reaches were not visited until the last year. Mr. Alexander Delcommune, a Belgian, ascended it in a steamer from its mouth below Stanley Falls up to about the fourth degree of south latitude. The natives told him that he was here but three days' journey from Nyangwe. It is possible that this is the same river seen by Cameron and crossed by Wissmann at six degrees south latitude. The discovery will prove of practical importance if it provides an easy route to Nyangwe, avoiding the obstruction of the Congo at Stanley Falls. The survey for the Congo railroad is completed, and the work of building is begun. The road will connect Matadi, the head of navigation on the lower river, with Stanley Pool, above which point are navigable waterways aggregating 6,000 miles. In order to avoid the mountainous lands which extend almost unbrokenly along the river in this cataract region, it was found necessary to lay the route for the most part about thirty miles south of the river. Much interest is manifested in the efforts to put an end to the slave-trade that is carried on by the Arabs who go through Central Africa with their caravans, ostensibly to buy ivory, but really to capture slaves. As another means of carrying civilization into the heart of the Dark Continent and abolishing the horrible trade in slaves, a project is on foot to make a highway through Africa, from 200 to 400 miles inland from the eastern coast. This line would begin at Guakim, on the Red Sea, and run inland by wagon-road to Berber on the Nile, then by steamers up that river, then by portages to the Victoria Nyanza and Lake Tanganyika and the Upper Zambesi. In time railroads could be substituted for wagon-roads, and connection made with the west coast by way of the Congo. It is believed that this line could be effectively policed and the slave-trade broken up. Great excitement has prevailed in England and in Portugal over a dispute between the two governments in regard to their claims to territory in southeastern Africa. (See CAPE COLONY, page 107.) ence. A few months ago Mr. Holmwood, the British Consul-General at Zanzibar, visited Kilima-Njaro at the request of Lord Salisbury to inspect the region that has been placed under British influHe reported after his return that in his opinion these elevated inland regions are well worth possessing. On the plateau east and north of the great mountain he says the thermometer ranges from 58° to 70°, and very rarely rises to 80°. This region is separated from the coast by a wide desert tract, and most of the products which Holmwood and others think would thrive on the plateaus would be of little value until easy communication is established with the sea. The route from the Indian Ocean to Victoria Nyanza through the country the British will attempt to develop is 200 miles shorter than any other." The explorations of Lieut. Van Gèle on the Mobangi, the great northern tributary of the Congo, leave no doubt that it is identical with the Welle Makua, whose course and destination has long been one of the problems of African geography. Lieut. Van Gêle, traveling from the west, reached a point only one degree from that reached by Dr. Junker on the Welle traveling eastward, both being in latitude 4° 20′ north. M. Camille Douls, whose explorations in the Sahara have been chronicled in previous volumes of this work, set out in June, 1888, with the object of crossing the desert and reaching Timbuctoo. He is reported to have been murdered by his guides in the Sahara between the oases of Alouef and Akabli. He was born at Bordes, in Aveyron, in 1864. Arctic. It is reported that a new island was found in the Arctic Ocean by Capt. E. H. Johannesen in the summer of 1887. It is east of Spitzbergen in lat. 80° 10' N. and long. 32° 3′ E., and is a table-land 2,100 feet high. He called it New Island. It is believed to be the same as Hvide, seen by Capt. Kjeldsen and by Capt. Sörensen in August, 1884. This discovery confirms the existence of an archipelago extending from Spitzbergen to Franz Josef Land; such an archipelago would prevent the polar ice from descending into Barento Sea, and consequently would have a great influence on the climate of the north of Europe. Australia.-Reporting an expedition to examine the region of the Upper Gascoyne and Ashburton rivers in West Australia, Ernest Favenc says that several large rivers tributary to the Ashburton were discovered, and were named the Cunningham, the Jackson, and the James. They run through a magnificent pastoral country, which will soon become valuable for sheepruns. He says: "We found the physical features of the country different entirely from the conjectural ones on some of the Western Australian maps, the supposed course of the Upper Ashburton being from 20 to 30 miles out of position by the observations taken by Mr. Cuthbertson. The geological formation of the Ashburton is against the likelihood of any valuable mineral deposits being discovered in the future; on the head of the Gascoyne, however, there is every prospect of the country repaying a careful search for gold. There is a good underground supply of water on the Gascoyne, at a depth of from 12 to 15 feet. The aborigines of this part are of a peculiarly degraded type, being greatly below the average of the natives of the northern and eastern coasts in intelligence." Bolivia.-The Gran Chaco, that great inland tract of country lying between 29° south latitude and the Tropic of Capricorn, and belonging to Argentina Bolivia and Paraguay, has never been fully explored. It has two great rivers flowing into the Paraguay-the Pilcomayo and the Bermejo, and at various times many attempts have been made to explore and open up these rivers as a natural highway from this great interior to the Atlantic coast. The latest one re ported was an expedition to ascend the Bermejo (or Vermejo) under Capt. John Page, of the Argentine navy. He found the lower course of the stream obstructed at three points by the wrecks of steamers that had attempted the passage before him. Three hundred miles above the mouth is the end of the Teuco, the new channel opened by the waters of the Bermejo when they left their old bed in 1870. This original channel is still covered at flood time; and the annual freshets have brought down great quantities of detritus to the valley, so that the tops of large trees are seen just rising above the surface. It is this shifting of the channels and filling up of the beds of the rivers with drift that renders the navigation so uncertain and dangerous, and at the same time by contributing to the great fertility of the soil, has made access to the region so desirable. Colonies have already been settled in the Austral, or southern Chaco, where the timber and sugar industries are carried on, and many native laborers are employed. The lands on both sides of the Bermejo for 400 miles above its mouth have been conceded by the Government for various enterprises, many of which are to be carried on with English capital. The Argentine Government sent Captain Page to England to obtain steamers for squadrons on the Bermejo and the Pilcomayo, and a special vessel to clear them of obstruction, so that it is to be expected that the region of the upper Pilcomayo, the section between 61° and 62 west longitude and 22° and 23 south latitude, where many expeditions have failed and some have been entirely lost, will not long remain an unknown land. In regard to the region he visited Capt. Page says: It is a safe prediction that this region has a great future, possessing as it does an equable climate, tempered by the prevailing southeast and southwest winds, with just enough of the warm and relaxing norther to give a zest to the enjoyment of the others, and stimulate vegetable growth; a climate which throughout the whole extent of its territories suits admirably the sons of southern Italy, and in its southern section has been proved to suit the hardier men of England and the United States. The soil is good and compares well with the lands of southern and western Buenos Ayres, having in its favor, for agricultural purposes, a far better climate, and is adapted to the growth of cotton, tobacco, the castor-oil plant, the olive, barley, sorghum, Indian corn, rice, the manioc, and many other products of temperate and intertropical climates. Cattle thrive in all the Chaco, attaining an extraordiary development in size, especially among the Indian herds, where they depend exclusively upon the grasses and wild fruits-such as the palm and locust. The grasses are varied and abundant, and include many of the species highly thought of in Buenos Ayres, which is, par excellence, the cattle-growing section just now of the Argentina." Viscount de Brettes has successfully made the journey, it is reported, through the northern Gran Chaco, traversing 186 miles of before unexplored ground. Starting from Apa, on the frontier of Paraguay and Brazil, he reached Bolivia in 21° 53' latitude and 63° 41' longitude, having crossed the territory of five native tribes. The reports of Dr. Karl von den Steinen's sec▾ ond visit to the country of the upper Xingu afford some very interesting details regarding the wild tribes he visited in that unknown region. Nine of these tribes were visited, all of them living about the upper Xingu and its eastern trib utaries. They seem to be still in the stone age, the use of metal being entirely unknown among them. The forest trees are felled with stone axes; stone hammers and nails are used to perforate the shells with which they adorn themselves; their knives are the sharp teeth of the fish piranha; their planes are made of river shells. They have pet parrots and other birds, but other domestic animals, even dogs, are unknown among them. They raise Indian corn, cotton, tobacco, but no sugar-cane, rice, or bananas. They seemed to have no idea of a God, but believe in a soul which travels away during sleep and has a future existence. They know nothing of a world beyond their own territory. Dr. von den Steinen thinks most of the tribes are a fragment of the Carib nation, perhaps the descendants of those who stayed in the original home of the race while the others migrated to the northward. In a paper read before the Berlin Society, Dr. von den Steinen gave an account of the Bororo Indians, who were long the terror of the people of Matto Grosso, but were conquered in 1886 and are now settled in two military colonies on the São Lourenço. They are nominally Christian, but do not allow that fact to interfere with their traditional beliefs and practices. They think the soul survives after death and passes into the body of the arara parrot, though the souls of the wizard priests have a more splendid destiny, some of them passing into meteors. The medicine men have great influence among them, much more than among the Xingu tribes. "They treat their patients only in the night. Under the influence of loud groans and the fumes of tobacco the sick person is stupefied, and finally, as the cause of suffering, a small knuckle bone, a small fruit, or what not, is represented as having been extracted from the body. The incurable patient is strangled by his own relatives at the command of the doctor if at the appointed time death has not come to his release. The author himself saw a father strangle his child who had been lying for a long time in agony while the mother held the boy on her lap. The Bororo have the very peculiar custom of packing their dead in baskets, which is evidently the first stage of burial in urns. The bodies are first of all buried, but after several weeks are exhumed and then the bones are cleansed in the most careful manner, the operation being attended with great festivities and dances. They are then daubed over with red paint and finally covered in the most effective style possible with birds' feathers, especially with the plumes of the many-colored arara parrot, which are pasted on them, especially on the skull. The square basket in which the skeleton, even to the last knuckle bone, is packed is also covered with a casing of yellow and blue feathers. If the wife dies, the collective property of the married couple is burned. In great contrast with the noisy sports and dances which take place when the basket is being filled with the skeleton is the ceremony of the interment of the bones themselves. After the case containing them has remained several days in the house of the relatives it is buried quite quietly in a secret spot, the women being excluded from the ceremony." The expedition descended the Kulisën, an eastern tributary of the Xingu whose course has hitherto been un known. Other expeditions to these parts of Brazil are in progress or in contemplation with a view to opening those regions to communication with the civilized parts of the country. Capt. Mendonça's mission to the province Paraná was for the purpose of opening a route from Guarapuava to the mouth of the Iguassu and along its course, which is broken by rapids, to the celebrated waterfall Sette Quedas, and thence in the valley of the Piquiry to Guarapuava again. The investigations of A. R. P. Labre have resulted in a plan to unite by a railroad, 93 miles in length, the Madre de Dios, a tributary of the Beni, and the Aquiry, a tributary of the Purus, at the head of navigation in those streams, thus giving Peru and Bolivia communication with the Amazon without the proposed railroad around the rapids of the Madeira. Another tributary of the Purus, heretofore known as the Great Igaripé, has been called Chandless by the people, in honor of the English explorer. Its mouth is in latitude 10° 30′ south and longitude 71° 20' west, a few miles below the river Manuel Urbano. British America.-The question of the practicability of making Hudson Bay and Strait a portion of a commercial route to Europe connecting with a railroad from Winnipeg to Hudson Bay continues to be discussed with interest, for such a route would shorten the distance to the coast by one half, making thus a great difference in the cost of transporting the products of western British America to Europe. Commodore A. H. Markham, from a comparison of recorded Voyages through the straits and some observations of his own, concludes that the passage may be safely and profitably made for at least five months during the year, but this can only be done with steamers especially adapted for ice navigation. Sailing ships have made the passage every year within a limited part of the season; and with better knowledge of the tides, closer observation of the peculiarities of formation of the floating ice, and the greater facilities offered by steam vessels it is believed that this great saving in distance between the grain fields of the western provinces and their European markets may doubtless be effected in the near future. Two hundred and seventy-five miles of railway would place Hudson Bay in connection with the inland waters; and it is estimated that with even but two and one half months of operation it would become a paying investment. not, as yet, been fully explored. But a part of its great glacier region was visited in the summer of 1888 by Rev. W. Spotswood Green and Rev. Henry Swanzy, who gave names to several of the glaciers and made the first map of the region ever published. A portion of this map, which appeared in the "Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society," for March, 1889, is herewith reproduced; and from Rev. Mr. Green's paper, read before the society, we take some of the details of his description of this wild region. Lying west of the Rocky mountains properthat is, the range that forms the divide of the waters-the Selkirk range forms a marked contrast to that rough, abrupt, and rugged chain. The Selkirk range on our right rose in gentle slopes and tiers of foot-hills, richly clad in pine forests, and cleft by far-reaching valleys, that of the Spillamachene river being the most important; while to the left the Rockies towered up from almost barren benches of white silt, with a sparse sprinkling of limestone to rugged mountain forms at once. No Douglas firs, in great bare precipices of pinkish-white large tributary joins the Columbia from that direction for eighty miles, only brooks half lost in the shingle brought down by spring torrents. The peaks near the Hector Pass are probably as high as any in the range north of the United States boundary, Mount Lefroy and his neighbors rising 11,600 feet above the sea. The heights given for Mounts Hooker 16,000 feet, are no doubt exaggerated. From the high and Brown, near the Athabasca Pass, 17,000 and peaks of the Selkirks I could scan the Rockies for at least two hundred miles, and from the arête of Mount Sir Donald, what appeared to me to be the highest group of peaks, bore about due east. Mr. McArthur, the Government Surveyor at present engaged on the survey of the Rockies, expressed to me his opinion, that though his work has not, as yet, carried him so far, he has reached points where such high mountains must have been visible if they existed. I was not able to see as much of the glaciers in the Rockies as I should have wished; one at the head of the charming Lake Louise, at the foot of Mount Lefroy, I visited on our homeward journey in September. This glacier was formed almost entirely by avalanches these occupied a bench, about a thousand feet up, on falling from the hanging glaciers above. One of the vertical cliffs of Mount Lefroy, and during the day and night I was camped there alone, my companion having missed me in the forest, avalanches fell continually, waking the echoes with the roar of thunder. Strangely enough, they seemed to fall more frequently between two and five o'clock A. M., than at hitherto discovered on the Rockies is situated to the any other time. . . . The most remarkable glacier north of Hector Pass, and extends on a rocky bench, The interior of British Columbia in the north- capping in some places the watershed, and surroundern part, almost unknown, has been surveyed by ing the rugged peaks rising like islands from its an expedition under Dr. G. M. Dawson. The midst, as a continuous snow field for about thirty survey includes an area of more than 6,000 square miles. Like the hanging glaciers on Mount Lemiles, a mountainous region in the main, though froy, it sends its ice down by avalanches, forming there are wide stretches of level or rolling land. glaciers remaniés in the neighboring valleys. The coast mountains extend to Telegraph creek on the Sitkine. Another range to the east of Dease lake is cut through by Dease river. Farther eastward another range gives rise to the streams that feed Pelly river and Frances lake. Dr. Dawson thinks the country capable of supporting as large a population as is found in corresponding latitudes in Europe. There are few, if any, glaciers among the mountains, and unlike the coast, which is very humid, the interior includes tracts of very dry country. The Selkirk range, lying between the Columbia and Kootenie rivers in British Columbia, has The Selkirks, being much more difficult of access than the Rockies, by reason of the greater denseness of the vegetation, have been omitted from the survey now going on of that region. The great glacier, which is the chief source of the Illecellewaet river, is in sight from the railway. On the east is Mount Sir Donald, 10,645 feet in height, and on the west is a forest-clad ridge separating the glacier valley from a branch valley running up into the mountains for about four miles and headed by the Asulkan glacier, which takes its name from the Sushwap Indian word for the wild goats abounding there. Describing the view from Mount Sir Donald, Mr. Green says the great snow field extended for over ten miles to the southward, while beyond it rose a seemingly endless series of snowclad peaks with glaciers in their hollows. Westward and northward similar peaks were seen, most of them rising to a height of 10,000 feet and few reaching 11,000. Eastward, beyond Beaver creek, a curious line of hills was seen, called by hunters the Prairie hills. Mr. Green describes their surface as looking very much as might a strip of cloth laid loosely over the rungs of a ladder lying flat upon the ground, and he ventures as a guess at their origin that they are markings of glaciers which moved eastward toward the Columbia Valley from the high central range in glacial times, and that since the passing away of the ice, Beaver creek has sculptured out its valley at right angles to the former drainage lines. To the glacier lying southwest of the great Illecellewaet snow field and south of the Asul kan glacier, was given the name Geikie glacier, south of which is Dawson glacier on the northern side of Mount Dawson, and beyond is the Van Horne glacier. Describing the chief features of the range, Mr. Green says: I have marked the main line of watershed of the Selkirk range on my map, and reference to it will show that it runs through Mount Cheops, Rogers Pass, and the Sir Donald range, and then cutting across the great Illecellewaet firn, continues its course along the peaks of the Dawson range. To the westward of this line there is a complexity of glacier-clad ranges, many peaks rising quite as high as those on the watershed, the valleys tending in a southwesterly course to the Columbia. To the eastward of the divide, a great change comes over the aspect of the region. The Prairie hills I have described above, and all the ranges between them and the Columbia, in its eastern portion, have a smooth rounded outline, forming a strong contrast to the ranges on the other side of the divide. There seem to be no glaciers, the ranges not being high enough for their formation. Among the higher ranges an immense number of small glaciers lie in the hollows, and two extensive snow fields are to be found within the limits of my map. One of these, being the source of the best known glacier in the whole region, on account of its being so clearly visible from the railway, I have called the great Illecellewaet firn, after the river of which it is the true source. This ice field, probably five hundred feet thick, to the southward extends down into a valley as the Geikie glacier, and to the eastward, having been joined by ice streams coming from the Dawson range, it pours into Beaver Creek valley as the Deville glacier. All these glaciers show evidence of shrinking. An immense moraine exists in the valley below the Illecellewaet glacier, where in ancient times it was met by an extension of the Asulkan glacier. Some of the blocks of quartzite in the moraine, are of huge dimensions, one I measured being 50 feet long, 24 feet thick, and 33 feet high. Another isolated bowlder farther down the valley measured 91 by 40 by 44 feet. The Illecellewaet glacier descends abruptly into the valley resembling a little the Rhône glacier; the ice is much broken, and is too steep to walk on. By calculation we estimated that the center of the ice had moved along 20 feet in thirteen days. The Geikie glacier, about 4 miles long and 1,000 yards wide, is a much more interesting ice stream. Sheltered from the sun's rays by high cliffs, it flows along a level valley so that one can walk across its lower portion in various directions without trouble. As it descends from the firm it is much broken; then its surface becomes level, but with numerous crevasses. Flowing round a bend longitudinal fissures are set up, crossing the others and forming such a multitude of séracs that the surface presents an appearance more like some basaltic formation with the columns pulled asunder than anything else I can think of. This beautiful structure gives place to the frozen waves of a mer de glace, and the glacier terminates in longitudinal and slightly radiating depressions and crevasses. The lateral moraines are quite discernible down the sides of the valley for a considerable distance below the termination of the glacier. There is no medial moraine, and the Dawson glacier with medial moraines just stops short of being a tributary. The other great snow field to which I have alluded above, the Van Horne glacier, forms the source of the southeastern fork of the main river of this valley. Comparing the scenery of the Selkirks with well-known views in Europe, Mr. Green says: The peaks do not rise so high above the general level of the glacier as to be comparable with the higher ranges of the Swiss Alps. They resemble more some of the ranges of the Tyrol. The great forest - clad valleys of the Selkirks can, however, scarcely be surpassed for beauty. The St. Gothard valley and the ranges between it and the Bernese Oberland, including the Rhône glacier, will afford the best comparison I can think of; but the views obtained from the railway are grander than anything visible from the St. Gothard. When in the high alps of New Zealand I had to acknowledge that the alpine flora was far inferior, in color at least, to that of Switzerland. Not so in the Selkirks. Were it not that the blue star of the gentian is missing, I would say that we had more color in America. The most conspicuous of these alpine plants is Castilleia miniata, its scarlet blossoms giving a marvelous brightness to the mountain slopes and to the older portions of the glacier moraines, which were perfect gardens of flowers. . The highest point at which we net with alpine plants was on the southern slopes of Ross Pass, 8,500 feet above the sca. Among the animals of the regions, which include black, cinnamon, and silver-tip bears, mountain goats, caribou, marmots, mountain rats, and creatures of the squirrel and rabbit kind, is described one, the sewellel, which has a strange fancy for collecting flowers. It lives be neath the bowlder heaps, and about its burrows are found little bouquets of blossoms with their laid them down. So much like the work of hustems neatly placed together as if some child had man hands do these look that the explorers on first seeing them supposed themselves to be on the track of other travelers. Copper and iron ores in abundance and galena, often rich in silver, appearing in several places, give rise to hopes of abounding mineral wealth. It is greatly to be regretted that the splendid eyergreen forests of the territory are fast undergoing destruction from fires occasioned by sparks from passing engines and neglected camp-fires. Europe. In France an underground river is reported to have been discovered in the Miers district of the department of Lot, and explored to a distance of seven miles by three men in an open boat. It was first seen at the bottom of an abyss known as the Pit of Paderoe, and was found to wind through a succession of grottoes and to abound in rapids; at the end of the seven miles it seemed to take a sudden plunge that made further examination dangerous. Greenland.-Dr. Fridtjof Nansen, who made the first journey ever made across the inland ice of Greenland from east to west, in 1888, returned to Europe in the spring of 1889, having arrived on the western coast too late to find passage in the preceding autumn. Previous attempts to penetrate the interior of Greenland have been made from the west. Dr. Nansen's idea was that starting from the east his party, having nothing behind them but the desolate coast, and before them the comforts of civilization on the west, would have no temptation to turn back and every inducement to go forward; the only alternatives would be to cross the country on the one hand, to die in the solitudes on the other. They sailed, therefore, for the eastern coast, but so thick was the ice floe that six weeks were spent in wandering about in the ice between Iceland and Greenland before the coast could be approached near enough for a landing to be made. On July 17, however, the party, consisting of six men, left the ship in the ice near Cape Dan, outside the Sermilik fjord. This is in about 65° 30′ north latitude. They were in two boats, and expected to make their way in one or two days through the ice pack of ten miles that still separated them from the land. But we met quite unexpectedly with a strong and dangerous current which pressed the ice floes against each other, and we had to take great care that our boats were not crushed; to make it more difficult, we got for some time fog and heavy rain. In spite of all this we advanced for about twenty hours rather rapidly toward land. I could see the stones on the shore, and was already quite sure of reaching it within a short time, when we had the misfortune of getting one of our boats crushed during an ice pressure; it could not float, and we were obliged to take it up on a floe and get it mended. This required several hours, and in the mean time we were swept southward by the rapid current; the distance from the land grew rapidly, and the speed with which we were swept along was so great that it was in vain to try to strugWe had nothing left but to take leave gle against it. of the beautiful mountains and the glaciers round the Sermilik fjord, and to look out for another landing place, or perhaps meet destruction in the floe ice with its capricious currents, which soon carried us toward land, but soon again toward the open sea. To make |