throw light on the uses of the ancient implements now so much discussed.

Professor Tennant described an Irish Lake Dwelling, discovered by Captain L'Estrange. It appears that lake dwellings existed in Ireland as late as the time of Cromwell; they are also made mention of by the poet Spenser.

Of papers on particular races there were the following:

Dr. John Beddoe, "On the Stature and Bulk of the Irish." Mr. Bogg, "On the Fishing Indians of Vancouver's Island." Mr. J. K. Lord on the same subject. Consul Hutchinson, "On the Indians of the Paraña." Mr. Collinson, "On the Indians of the Mosquito Territory." Dr. Charnock, "On the People of Andorra." Dr. Gustave Lagneau, "On the Saracens in France." Mr. Ernst "On the Anthropology of Caracas." Dr. Short, "On the Marvar Tribes of India." Professor Leitner, papers from Lahore. Dr. Paul Broca, "On the Anthropology of Lower Brittany." Dr. Mann, "On the Zulu Kaffirs of Natal;" and Mr. Haughton, "On the Land Dayas of Upper Sarawak." Papers of a more comprehensive and philosophical character were those of Mr. Tylor, "On the Phenomena of Higher Civilization traceable to a Rudimental Origin among Savage Tribes," in which the author showed that the most important explanations of present or past unaccountable manners, customs, and superstitions may be obtained by the study of comparative mythology, and by seeking evidence among present savage nations of old customs or superstitions in a modified form. That of Mr. Phillips Day, "On the Power of Rearing Children among Savage Tribes ;" and that of Dr. Hunt, "On the Principle of Natural Selection," applied to Anthropology.

The meeting at Nottingham, as far as Section D was concerned, was a successful one, as is shown by the very large number of papers read, all being of a high standard as regards scientific worth, though none were exceptionally, and a few were perhaps not generally, interesting.

We greatly regret that our limited space has prevented us from giving little more than the titles of many interesting papers on those branches of Science included under the general head of Biology, but our readers will readily perceive, from the very scope of the subject, that it is hardly possible to do justice to it in a short

summary.

GEOGRAPHY AND ETHNOLOGY. (Section E.)

The new arrangement decreed by the Council of the Association last year, whereby the science of Man was referred to the Natural History Section and powers given to that Section for the constitution of a department of Anthropology, has not yet had the effect of lessening the number of papers usually read in the Section of Geography and Ethnology. By the new arrangement, all papers treating of the Zoological characters, origin, and primitive history of man are, or ought to be, discarded from the Section which treats of pure Ethnology, and those papers only admitted which describe the observations of travellers on the tribes of distant countries, chiefly in their geographical relations. One or two papers however were read which the Committee of the Section ought, perhaps, not to have admitted. The Section sat six days, and several papers on the programme were left at the last unread.

A trio of famous travellers constituted the chief attraction of the meeting; the names of Baker, Palgrave, and Du Chaillu on the lists of authors of papers drawing together very large audiences. It was computed that 1,200 people were assembled to hear (or, perhaps, rather to see) the gorilla hero; the audiences drawn by Sir Samuel Baker and Mr. Palgrave being somewhat inferior in numbers. The other geographical papers were much inferior in popular interest to the discourses of these three travellers, but there were several of much scientific value and geographical novelty. We will now proceed to give a sketch of the principal subjects brought before the Section.

Sir Samuel Baker commenced the scientific work of the Section, on Thursday the 23rd, by a discourse (it was not a written paper) on the "Relations of the Abyssinian Tributaries of the Nile and the Equatorial Lakes to the Inundations and Fertility of Egypt." Sir Samuel showed himself to be a ready speaker, and the skilful way in which he combined graphic description and amusing narrative with closely-reasoned argument, produced a great effect on his audience. His object was to show, from his own observations, that the annual inundations and fertilizing mud of the lower Nile Valley were produced solely by those tributaries of the great river which have their rise in Abyssinia, and that the outflow from the great lakes near the Equator had simply the effect of keeping up the supply of water when the Abyssinian floods ceased in the dry season. He spent twelve months, from June 1861 to June 1862, in exploring the Abyssinian streams, ascending the banks of the Atbara, and from its upper waters crossing the tributary rivers till he reached the Blue Nile, down which he travelled to Khartum. He described the condition of the Atbara when he first reached its banks, at the close of the dry season. The river is the last tributary which the

Nile receives in its course towards the Mediterranean. From its junction the great river flows through upwards of 14 degrees of latitude, or, allowing for the winding of the bed, about 1,100 miles, through deserts of burning sand, where evaporation and absorption dissipate a large proportion of the water it receives from the upper part of its course. At the junction of the Atbara, the volume of the Nile water is at its maximum. When Baker travelled along the lower part of the course of this important tributary it presented a dry sandy bed, fringed with a few Doum palms and mimosa bushes; not one drop of water flowed from it to the Nile. He proceeded for about 180 miles, and then, on the 23rd of June, witnessed the sudden change which transforms this desert bed into a vast river. The deluging rainfall had commenced in Abyssinia, and the flood came down so rapidly that in a few hours the Atbara, here 500 yards wide, had become a noble stream 20 feet deep. When he had reached the Settite, the principal affluent of the Atbara, which, being situated in a more humid climate, never becomes wholly dry, he discovered the source whence the fertilizing deposit is derived which the Atbara carries down towards the Nile Delta. The country is table-land, covered with rich mould, and the rains sweep this into the streams in such quantity that in the height of the flood the waters of the Atbara become of the consistency of soup.

When sailing up the White or main Nile en route to the Equatorial lakes, Sir Samuel observed the great contrast which the river presented to the tributaries he had just visited. He gave a brief outline of his journey from Khartum to the shores of the Albert Lake, and showed that whilst in Abyssinia the rainy season lasts only three months, from June to September, the region of the great lakes has a ten months' rainfall. The outflow from the Albert Nyanza is therefore perennial; it keeps up the supply to Egypt when the Abyssinian inundation has ceased, and prevents the lower Nile from becoming a desert; the supply, moreover, is sufficiently great to overcome the great absorption and evaporation which intervene in flowing through the Nubian deserts. It does not however carry any considerable quantity of fertilizing deposit towards the Delta. Sir Samuel might have here quoted, in support of his views, the authority of Dr. Peney, who made careful measurements of the fluctuations in the Nile-level at Gondokoro, and discovered that there was no regular annual flood and subsidence, but numerous minor fluctuations at intervals of a few days.

Sir Samuel also communicated his ethnological observations to the Section on the last day of the meeting, Wednesday the 29th. It was again an unwritten discourse, and given with a graphic power and humour which delighted the audience. The title given in the programme was "Observations on the Negro Character;" but this gave an inadequate idea of the theme, which was "The

Tribes of Central Africa as influenced by Local Conditions." He gave his observations in the form of a narrative, commencing with his first meeting with true negroes, in sailing up the Nile, in 15° N. lat. All tribes to the north of this were of Semitic derivation, or mongrels of various intermixture. He described the wretched condition of the Aliab, Shyr, and other tribes who inhabit the vast region of morasses extending on either side of the White Nile between 10 and 5° N. lat.; naked savages of emaciated forms and the lowest type of negroes physically and morally. In these regions there was no iron ore or dust and therefore no iron manufacture, one of the causes of the superior condition of the tribes on the higher lands. They are always in a state of semi-starvation, and are driven to grind the bones of animals between stones to make soup of. Among the tribes of the higher lands between 4° N. lat. and the equator, the art of working in iron is everywhere practised, and instruments of great beauty are manufactured. The Unyoro people have even invented a kind of hoe, so ingenious that it might be copied to advantage by Europeans. In those parts of the country, again, which are adapted for cattle, the tsetse fly has great influence; the fly is restricted to certain circumscribed localities; wherever it is present there can be no cattle, and the people are inferior in civilization; wherever it is absent the condition of the people is entirely changed; for the protection of their wealth in cattle necessitates warlike organization and elevates the social character in many other ways. Notwithstanding the many points of difference, the general character of all the tribes was the same. Sir Samuel reiterated that the first step necessary to the improvement of the Central African tribes, was the abolition of the present slave traffic; and that an extensive commerce might be carried on between Europeans and the superior tribes dwelling in the region of the great lakes if this step were taken.

Mr. Palgrave's paper was on the two divisions of Arabia, North and South. He endeavoured to impart some novelty to a subject on which he has already written and lectured so much, by describing in a clear form the physical and social characteristics which distinguish Nejed, the country of Wahabee domination, from Oman, the region which is becoming of growing importance to us.

M. Du Chaillu's paper was entitled "Notes on the Physical Geography and Tribes of Western Equatorial Africa." The subject was generally thought to be ably and scientifically treated; and the audience seemed to be surprised, if not disappointed, that they were not treated to gorilla anecdotes and travellers' tales. The author gave a general description of the country he had traversed during his last journey, showing that with the exception of a belt of low coast land about 80 miles wide, it consisted of a hilly region covered with primitive forests. The land successively rose as he ascended

the hilly ranges which run nearly parallel to the coast, until, 250 miles from the coast, it reached an altitude of 2,500 feet above the sea level. The forest is so continuous that the small tracts of prairie land seemed like islands in a sea of foliage. Nearly all the quadrupeds characteristic of Africa were absent, lion, rhinoceros, giraffe, zebra, ostrich, eland, &c., whilst several apes were peculiar to the region, including the gorilla.

An important paper was read on Monday the 27th, "On a Recent Expedition from Leh to Khotan, in Chinese Tartary." The author was Mr. W. H. Johnson, one of the civil assistants in the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India. This great survey properly terminates in North-western India, at the Karakorum range of the Himalaya; the officers engaged, however, on carrying their triangulations to the summit of these passes, naturally cast a longing eye over the forbidden ground beyond, a region of which nothing as yet is accurately known. Mr. Johnson had the boldness to adventure into this unknown land. He crossed, northward of Leh, the pass of Lumkang (19,533 feet), and reached the elevated plateaux which extend between the Karakorum and the Kiun Lun ranges of mountains. The first plain is about 17,300 feet above the sea level, and bears traces of having been the bed of a large lake; a second plain slopes for a distance of 30 miles, in a north-easterly direction, from 16,700 feet down to 15,300, when it rises again towards the watershed of the Kiun Lun. He struck the Karakash river of Tartary at a point where it is 15,500 feet above the sea-level. Great plains stretched hence towards the east and south-east, but to the west lay a series of deep valleys. Beyond this point Mr. Johnson travelled under the protection of the Khan Badsha of Khotan, who, having shaken off the yoke of the Chinese, was anxious to cultivate friendly relations with the British Government, and invited the adventurous surveyor to visit him in his capital, Ilchi. He sent an escort to meet him, and the march was resumed into the plains of Tartary. It took him sixteen days to travel from the Karakash to Ilchi. He met there with a most friendly reception, and made excursions into the neighbouring country. The city contains a population of 40,000, and is the seat of many manufactures and a busy trade. It is 4,329 feet above the sea-level. At a distance of six miles to the north-east of the city commences the great desert of Gobi, with its shifting sands, which move along in vast billows overpowering everything. The sand is an extremely fine dust resembling pulverized clay, and when it moves the whole atmosphere becomes so dark that Mr. Johnson, at Ilchi, was obliged to use a candle at mid-day to read large print. Where the dust falls it fertilizes the soil, and the province of Khotan is so much enriched by it that the district is more productive than the valley of Kashmere; cotton, silk, and

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