at not more than 2000 feet. It is now found that at Gondókoro, in 4° 44' N. lat., the elevation of the bed of the Nile is only 1911 feet. On the other hand, the mountain-range of Eastern Africa, forming the anticlinal axis between the ocean and the basin of the Nile, which in 1846 could only be traced as far as 9° 30' N. lat., may now be regarded as extending beyond the sixth parallel of south latitude, in a line running from N.N.E. to S.S.W. between the 40th and 35th meridians.

It was next stated that the snowy mountains, Kilimandjaro, Kenia, and DoengoEngai, which in 1846 were unknown, are portions of this mountain-range of Eastern Africa, to which Dr. Beke attributes the name of the "Mountains of the Moon," the snows of which are described by Ptolemy as flowing into the two lakes of the Nile the lakes intended being Tanganyika and Nyanza, recently discovered by Captains Burton and Speke.

With reference to the derivation of the designation "Mountains of the Moon" from the name of the country, U-Nyamwezi, in the vicinity of those lakes, the author showed in the first place how the Indian name of the island of Java-Javadvipa-was translated into Greek Kpions voos or Barley Island, just as the Latin name of the Etruscan city and port of Luna was translated Eeλnum; though there is reason for believing that such significations did not belong to the words Java and Luna in their respective aboriginal languages, but were merely mistranslations, or rather misapprehensions, by the Indian conquerors of Java in the one case, and by the Romans in the other. In the same way, the native African name U-Nyamwezi, having become known to the Greeks through the Sawáhilis, or people of the coast, in whose language mwezi means moon, may have been supposed to have some connexion with the name of that planet.

Dr. Beke argued, however, that Mwezi, as a component part of the name U-Nyamwezi, does not necessarily mean moon in the aboriginal language of the country. All the Kafir tongues have certain prefixes, distinguishing singulars from plurals, adjectives from substantives, and one kind of substantive from another. Thus KiNyamwezi is the language spoken by the Wa-Nyamwezi, which people dwell in the country called U-Nyamwezi, one of them being a M'Nyamwezi or Mu-Nyamwezi (whence our "Monomoezi ").

It appears then that the root is not Mwezi, but Nyamwezi; and though it may be that the natives themselves never use the root without some prefix, strangers might not unreasonably do so, and even contract Nyamwezi into Mwezi, as the Sawáhilis and Arabs, according to Captain Burton, actually do; and from this contraction, the translation into the Greek Selene would have followed as a matter of

course.

What the theoretical root may mean in the Nyamwezi language has yet to be ascertained. Meanwhile the rendering of U-Nyamwezi into "Possession of the Moon," or "Land of the Moon," may well be questioned. Should it prove to be erroneous, the designation "Mountains of the Moon," as applied to the great mountain-range of Eastern Africa in which are the sources of the Nile, will have originated in a mistranslation or misconception. Still, this well-known name has been in use during so many ages, that it could hardly be practicable, and certainly would not be judicious, to supersede it now.

The paper concluded thus :-" The entire eastern side of the basin of the Nile appears to be auriferous, the gold collected in various parts of it since the earliest ages being brought down by the tributaries of that river; so that there is reason to consider the Mountains of the Moon as a meridional metalliferous cordillera, similar in its general characters to the Ural and the corresponding mountain-ranges of America and Australia..... Whenever the discovery shall be made in Eastern Africa of some of the chief deposits of that precious metal, the influx from all parts of the civilized world to the diggings' in the Mountains of the Moon will be such as to occasion a more rapid and complete revolution in the social condition of those hitherto neglected regions, than could be caused by commerce, by missionary labours, by colonization, or by conquest; as we have witnessed in other quarters of the globe, where the auri sacra fames has collected together masses of the most daring and energetic of human beings. We shall then, too, doubtless see in Eastern Africa, as in California and in Australia, the formation of another new race of mankind."

Notice of a Volcanic Eruption on the Coast of Abessinia.

By CHARLES T. BEKE, Ph.D., F.S.A., F.R.G.S. &c.

During the night of the 7th or morning of the 8th of May, 1861, a volcanic e tion took place from Djebel Dubbeh, in about 13° 57' N. lat., and 41° 20′ E. b. accompanied by loud shocks resembling the discharge of artillery and imme clouds of dust. The noises were distinctly heard both at Massowah and at Periz. places nearly 400 miles apart, and the dust fell for several days over a vast extem of the Red Sea, and on the coast of Arabia as far as the mountain-range of Yenz At Edd, on the Abessinian coast, a day's journey from Djebel Dubbeh, the dis was knee-deep, and its fall during the first day caused total darkness. The er tion continued at intervals for three or four days. There is no remembrance of my previous eruption. Djebel Dubbeh is distant about 230 miles, in a direction she due north, from the great extinct volcano Aiyalu or Azalo, mentioned in Dr. Bek paper "On the Mountains forming the Eastern Side of the Basin of the Nile;" a like Aiyalu and also Kilimandjaro, it forms a portion of the mountain-system which he attributes the designation of the Mountains of the Moon*.

Remarks on the Glacial Movements noticed in the Vicinity of Mount St. Elin, on the North-west Coast of America. By Admiral Sir E. BELCHER, C.B.,

F.R.A.S.

Early in September 1837, Sir Edward's expedition ran down the coast of North America, between ports Etches and Mulgrave, in order to fix the position and determine the height of Mount St. Elias.

The icebergs which hung about the coast were much larger than those which he had seen in Behring's Strait and northerly, or off the mouths of the fiords in the vicinity of Port Etches. The icebergs presented a beautiful appearance.

He (Sir Edward) believed that in the upper valley of Icy Bay the lower bode of the ice were subject to slide, and that the entire substratum, as frequently found within the Arctic Circle, was composed of slippery mud. In Icy Bay the apparently descending ice, from the mountains to the base, was in irregular broken masses, which tumbled in confusion. The motion was clearly continuous.

As to the causes which operated in producing the constant displacements of the glacier, and the protrusion of the bergs to seaward, many theories had been proposed. His (Sir Edward's) impression was that, whatever was the intensity of cold under which congelation had taken place, the actual temperature due to the ice was merely that of 32° Fahrenheit, and that self-registering thermometers, properly buried in ice or snow, subject even to the very low temperature of 62 5 below zero on the external skin of snow, only indicated the proper temperature of freezing water. Salt-water ice has a temperature or 28°.

In the very high latitudes of 66° to 76° north, the snow on the surface of the snow-clad elevations furnished sufficient water to undermine the lower beds of snowice, and bore a passage to the sea. However firm the crust might be in certain positions, a furious torrent had been at work beneath.

They were thus driven to the conclusion that the temperature of the earth must in some degree aid in keeping up a temperature sufficiently high to prevent the congelation of the water hidden from light or the sun's rays. The advance of vegetation was another proof, the ground-willow, saxifrages, and mayflower, and many other plants, producing their shoots before light caused the immediate expansion and colouring of the leaf.

The earth's temperature, acting on the lower portions next to the soil, aided in facilitating the travel of the slip of the snow-ice of which these glaciers were com posed to lower levels. In all ice-formations might be noticed, at the season which followed the period of day frost or preceded the spring, a peculiar dryness, the result of evaporation of the superfluous water, attended by dense fogs. An ominous cracking was then experienced, which had been misrepresented by some of the first Arctic explorers as the breaking of the bolts of their vessels; no bolt was ever traced to have been so broken! He imagined that the soil on which masses of eter*Various particulars respecting this eruption are given by Dr. Beke in The Times of the 20th and 21st June, 24th September, and 16th October, 1861.

nal or eternally-shifting ice reposed must be, from never being exposed to the sun's rays, of a loose, boggy, or muddy nature, which facilitated slipping. The undermining facilitated cracking; and the very action of alternate freezing and thawing between the exposed surfaces, serving as aqueducts along the upper portions into which water would flow, must produce compact ice; and its power in that very action was quite adequate, by comparison, not only to remove ice, but even mountains of earth, provided the point d'appui be afforded.

It was evident with respect to the lower portions supporting Mount St. Elias, and which were subject to a summer heat which ripened strawberries, and was even more oppressive than we experienced in England, with the rapid thaws of the inferior levels, that repeated fracture and avalanches occurred. They must calculate on sudden tremendous concussive force, by the breaking away of whole ranges and their precipitation on the lower strata. His opinion was that the shocks of the avalanches communicated laterally had produced such fractures as had been noticed in those peculiar pyramidal forms near Mount St. Elias. These fractures, opened, were filled by water, which probably froze at night or when the sun was absent; and expansion drove the exterior masses, which were termed bergs, into the sea.

Such was his theory, founded on severe thought over a period of thirty-five years, under frequent contact with nature in actual operation.

The Great Earthquake at Mendoza, 20th March, 1861. Extracts from a Letter written by R. BRIDGE to W. BOLLAERT, F.G.S.

This catastrophe, the writer said, was treated by all as an earthquake; and, in the simple sense of the word, it might be classified as such, as the writer found in Mr. Bollaert's work on Earthquakes; but he distinguished between an earthquake and an internal irruption. The latter had evidently been the case at Mendoza, since its effects had been felt north, south, east, and west of the city, at Valparaiso, Coquimbo, in Chili, San Juan (north of Mendoza), and El Rosario (east of Mendoza), more or less equidistant. It was deficient in many of the characteristics of the earthquakes experienced in Chili, not having followed a line, no rain having fallen, and differences of time not having been observable. In fact, it appeared to have been simultaneous at all places; to have been an upheaving exclusively at Mendoza, and between that and the Andes. No volcano had, however, been found. The walls of the buildings had fallen, indicative of having been rent in every direction, none indicating any horizontal motion; indeed, had there been any such, the loss of life, estimated at 10,500 out of 13,000, would not have been so great, as the means of escape would have been facilitated by different fallings.

Cromleachs and Rocking-stones considered Ethnologically. By P. O'CALLAGHAN, B.A., Honorary Secretary to the Philosophical and Literary Society of Leeds.

The author observed that no stone object of human veneration or superstition was so universally distributed over the face of the globe as the Cromleach. He then gave the Celtic derivation of the word, implying "crooked" or "inclining stone." He stated that, in consequence of its cumbrous obstruction, it has been for the most part removed or broken up in the cultivated parts of Europe, and was consequently now seldom seen but in desolate and secluded places, except where it had some peculiar local protection. From this circumstance, and especially from its rude and massive proportions, its construction was vulgarly ascribed to supernatural agency. After noticing the researches of Mr. Lukis and Sir R. Colt Hore, he said that it was now conceded on all hands that the Cromleach was originally a tomb or grave. He then described the manner in which he saw the Caribs dispose of their dead-doubling up the body into the smallest possible compass, and depositing it in a narrow excavation under one or more large stones, to conceal and protect it from the carnivorous animals of the surrounding forests. He thought that this was in all probability the most primitive, as it was the most natural, way of disposing of the human dead body, in man's savage state, all over the world. He inferred from this that the original Cromleach was of natural or accidental formation, and showed

drawings of several which he said must have been thus formed. Two especialy, of vast size, he thought were boulders dropped from ice-floes, which in falling others broke them, and remained ever since securely supported upon these rode props. They would then become ready-made and secure tombs, and would be ontinually used for such a purpose from the remotest ages.

On this supposition he thought that the relics of various and successive res which are occasionally found in such Cromleachs, could be easily accounted fr He observed that it was not surprising that these large blocks of stone, so myster ously disposed, should have produced a feeling of awe and veneration, and that they should even come to be regarded as objects of superstitious fear or ultimately f religious worship, such as that practised by the Druids. He said that he did t mean to assert that all Cromleachs were so formed; on the contrary, he thought that the greater number, especially of the smaller ones, were evidently artificial All he meant to contend for was, that the original Cromleach was of natural a accidental formation, and used as a grave for countless ages before its artificial im tation, which ultimately assumed the form of a rude tomb. He considered that the universal distribution of the Cromleach should not be looked upon as a conclusive proof of an identity of origin of the various races of man, but rather as an indica tion of an identity of the instinctive resources of the human intellect under similar circumstances. He instanced the curious similarity, almost amounting to identity, of two stone hatchets in the Museum at Leeds, one of which was brought from Otaheite, and the other found, with ancient British relics, in a cave near Settle He thought that when the materials of a Cromleach were light and easily dis placed, the instinctive resource under such circumstances would be to conceal it under a mound of earth or stones, as the locality could afford. This he believed to be the true history of the original tumulus or cairn, which were the probable prototypes of those stupendous pyramidal structures of the more civilized Egyptians. He considered this a more natural explanation of those universal structures than the dreamy visions of certain ethnologists, who will only see in them the vestiges or landmarks of improbable human migrations, of which they offer us no more satisfactory evidence than the ingenious speculations of philolo gists, who find in language such a plastic material that they can mould it into any form to suit their own preconceived theories.

the

Amongst the other megalithic wonders, the erection of which has been popularly ascribed to supernatural agency, he remarked that none was more striking than the "Rocking-stone." He quoted a passage from Wilson's 'Prehistoric Annals of Scotland, in which the writer graphically describes the engineering science and mechanical skill evinced in their erection. He thought that the theory advanced by him for the formation of the primitive Cromleach would easily remove all these mechanical difficulties. He observed that if the glacial flood, of which we have everywhere such manifest indications, had borne away upon its enormous ice-rafts vast blocks of stone, torn from the abraded sides of the valleys as they drifted through them, these masses of rock must have been all deposited on the bottom of this icy sea, on its increase of temperature and subsidence. Now, many of these floating boulders must, he thought, have fallen upon others, and rested upon broken fragments, as in the instance of the Cromleach. He considered that it was not unreasonable to suppose that occasionally others may have been deposited quietly upon the very pivot of their centres of gravity, where they would remain curiously balanced, on the retreat of the waters. They would there naturally be come objects of wonder and awe to the savage human creatures who first beheld them, and to all succeeding generations. He stated that the Phoenicians and Greeks assigned to the Rocking-stone divine power, and that the priests everywhere availed themselves of this superstitious fear. The author exhibited a sketch of the famous Logan Stone of Cornwall, to show how impossible it was to look upon it as the work of human hands. He described another sort of Rocking-stone, which he thought to have been formed by the gradual wearing of the narrow base of the overlying stone. In illustration of this latter idea, he exhibited a sketch of an "erratic block" near Settle, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, which is figured in Professor Phillips's interesting work on that county. He thought that it was not difficult to foresee that, in the lapse of time not very remote, the small base upon which this rock now rests securely may be scaled off by rain and frost, until

the huge mass becomes detached, or poised upon a pivot so small as to allow it to oscillate as a Rocking-stone.

Notices on the Ethnology, Geography, and Commerce of the Caucasus.
By CAPTAIN CAMERON.

The locality referred to was the Caucasian Isthmus. Hercules, Castor and Pollux, Ulysses, and other Greek worthies were all said to have done something towards opening the Caucasus to the enterprise of their countrymen. It grew to be pre-eminently a land of marvels. After reference to the ancient traditions of the Amazons, it was stated that the Caucasus had played its part in history, and especially made itself felt in the movements of the two important continents which it both separated and linked together. The Caucasus was a laboratory in which nature had been working on the largest scale, and magnificent results were given in its varied geological formation, &c. The beginning of the establishment of the Cossacks in the Caucasus dated some centuries back, and their numbers were systematically augmented by Peter the Great and his successors. After a reference to the various Tartar tribes, and to the Tcherkissis, whose habits were graphically described, other portions of the inhabitants of the Caucasus were similarly noticed. So far from Shamil being the chief of the Circassians, they looked upon his "levelling" system of government with suspicion and dislike; and it was only among the Tchetchess and Lesghins that Shamil had any power. The Caucasus possessed every diversity of soil; it was capable of producing indigo and cotton. The silk trade had received a stimulus by the failure of the supply in other quarters. During the Irish famine, 125,000 bushels of Indian corn were exported to this country. In the Caucasus, as elsewhere in the East, Swiss manufactures were gaining rapidly on those of England, a fact which Mr. Herries ascribed to the circumstance that hand-loom patterns and colours could be constantly [varied without difficulty or expense, which, he said, was not the case with power-loom weaving. In the bazaars in Mingrelia, however, the average of British goods as against Swiss was generally as three to two. Steam had been introduced both on the Black and Caspian Seas and elsewhere.

On the Geography and Natural History of Western Equatorial Africa.
By P. B. DU CHAILLU.

This singular region, explored by the author during the years 1856-7-8-9, lay within two degrees on either side of the equator, and extended for 400 miles into the interior. Having described its physical features, its partly swampy, partly mountainous character, and its dense forests, which ascend to the very tops of the mountains; its rivers, the Muni, the Moondah, and the Gaboon, all rising in the range of mountains known as Sierra del Crystal, 60 or 80 miles from the west; also the Nazareth, the Mexias, and the Fernand-vaz, the latter chiefly fed by the Ogobai, and this last fed by the Rembo Ngouyai and the Rembo Okanda; the traveller, reverting to the mountains, said, "Judging from my own examination, and from the most careful inquiries among the people of the far interior, I think there is good reason to believe that an important mountain-range divides the continent of Africa nearly along the line of the equator, starting from the west from the range which runs along the coast north and south, and ending in the east, probably in the country south of the mountains of Abyssinia, or perhaps terminating abruptly to the north of the lake Tanganyika of Captains Burton and Speke." To the existence of this range, and of the flat, wooded, damp country at its foot, he attributed the fact that Mahometanism had never in Africa spread south of the equator. The natural history of the country was next referred to at some length. With regard to the gorilla, he considered it probable that its range was coextensive with the dense jungle of the interior. He had no doubt that with the advance of civilization in that region this monster would disappear; and it was a great satisfaction to the scientific world and to himself to know that, whatever might happen, the world would have, from the pen of one of its most illustrious zootomists, Professor Owen, an imperishable record of the most wonderful anthropoid animal yet described.