Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

ney of seven hundred miles) makes his accounts of them unusually valuable.

At a recent meeting of the Berlin Geographical Society a report of Dr. Von Bary was read regarding his investigation of the Tuareg region of the Western Sahara. His researches lead him to the belief that there is but little, if any, reason to believe that the Sahara Desert is the bed of an ancient sea.

The recent annexation by Great Britain of the South African territory known hitherto as the Transvaal Republic has drawn attention to the geography of that immensely valuable region, and has shown how very much remains to be done to perfect a knowledge of it. In the Geographical Magazine for February, 1877, as well as in the Mittheilungen, are excellent maps showing recent explorations.

Considerable attention has been attracted to Dr. E. Holub's travels in South Africa, and particularly to his exploration of the middle course of the Zambesi. During the past summer he has communicated to a newspaper called the Diamond Field (printed at Kimberley, in West Griqua Land) detailed accounts of his observations in that region. He entirely confirms the statements of Cameron and Young regarding the active participation of Portuguese merchants in the slave-trade of the interior.

Under the personal superintendence of Colonel Gordon, R.E., assisted by Lieutenants Watson and Chippendall, R.E., and by M. Gessi, a thorough survey of the Nile has been made, commencing at Khartoum and ending at a point about forty miles from the north end of the Victoria Nyanza, a distance of 1500 miles. From these surveys two maps have been prepared, on a scale of thirty-five miles to the inch.

M. Gessi has circumnavigated the Albert Lake, and finds it to be one hundred and forty-one miles from northeast to southwest, and from forty to sixty miles wide. He has proved beyond a doubt that the Nile descends from the Victoria Nyanza, enters the Albert Lake, and flows from it, at a point fourteen miles farther north, to Dufli, thus setting at rest the question of the direct connection of the great river with these two lakes.

AUSTRALIA.

Surveys have been made on the Stevenson River, in the south, and on the Daly River, in the north, the valley of the latter being described as a rich and grassy district. A northwestern expedition, under Mr. W. O. Hodgkinson, starting from Queensland, has explored the country from the Flinders and Concurry rivers to the frontiers of South Australia, following the course of the Diamantina River, and finding great areas of good pasture-land, with beautiful lakes, bounded on the west by a sandstone range named the Cairns Mountains. The Herbert River flows for a short distance through South Australia, but afterwards unites with one of the sources of the great Mulligan River flowing through Queensland. The expedition returned in October, 1876, to the falls of the Leichhardt.

An extension of Mr. Hodgkinson's work has been planned. The expedition was to start about the end of September from near the head-waters of the Gregory River, which empties into the Gulf of Carpentaria, pushing eastward to Tennant Creek, and along the telegraph line to the waters of the Daly; thence eastward to the Nicholson River, in this way twice crossing the broad strip of unknown land between the transcontinental telegraph line and the Gregory River.

The end in view in all these surveys is, in addition to the acquiring of exact knowledge of the geography, the discovery of new pasture-lands.

Mr. Alexander Forrest crossed the Hampton Plains, in West Australia, last year, hoping to find pasture-land, but his investigations established the fact that the interior of West Australia is all desert.

The Katharine River was explored in 1876 by Mr. G. R. McMinn, Chief Geographer of the Northern Territory. Mr. McMinn is convinced of the identity of the Daly and Katharine rivers.

To the southwest of the Katharine River worthless lowland plains were found covered with a growth of scrub and spinifex.

Mr. E. Giles's report of his return trip across West Australia last year, with a carefully executed map of his route, has been published by the government as a parliamentary paper.

NEW GUINEA.

In a recent number of the Zeitschrift of the Berlin Geographical Society is an interesting paper by Captain Von Schleinitz on the geographical observations in New Guinea, in New Britannia and Solomons Archipelago, made by the Prussian expedition in the Gazelle.

The exploration of New Guinea is going steadily forward, and the Australian colonists are discussing its annexation.

Signor d'Albertis, whose first exploration of the Fly River was so successful, has made a second visit to that river, and by means of it has penetrated to the centre of the island, reaching a point in 5° 30' south latitude, 141° 30' east longitude. He reports that the whole country is flat and marshy, the land nowhere rising more than two hundred and twenty-five feet. The natives resemble those of the eastern part of the island in appearance, manners, customs, etc, but differ widely from the blacks of the northwest. Bananas, taro, and tobacco are cultivated to a certain extent.

The vicinity of Port Moresby is described as a well-watered and fertile country.

In M. Cora's Cosmos are published the reports of M. Miklucho-Maklay and of Signor d'Albertis regarding their recent explorations.

In the Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society is an account by the Rev. S. Macfarlane of a journey made by him along the southern coast of New Guinea in March, 1877. Two fine harbors were discovered, and several good anchorages along the coast. The natives were friendly and numerous. Mr. Macfarlane found many errors in the published charts.

During the last summer the Dutch expedition for the exploration of Sumatra has traversed the island from west to east, and explored a large tract of country lying to the north of Padang.

It is understood that this expedition is preliminary to settlement and occupation on a large scale, the annexation of this great island to the Dutch East India possessions having for some time been urgently pressed upon the authorities at Batavia.

GEOGRAPHY OF NORTH AMERICA.

By SAMUEL H. SCUDDER,
CAMBRIDGE, MASS.

The most important explorations of the year 1877 were the government surveys of the unsettled parts of the national domain. The oldest of these, the Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories, under Dr. Hayden, completed its field work in Colorado in 1876; so that this new state, although perhaps the most diversified in our Union, enters upon life under the most propitious circumstances, its whole territory better mapped than perhaps any older state. In 1877 the survey passed northward into Wyoming and Idaho, taking in a tract of country between 107° and 112° W. long., extending from the Pacific Railway northward to the Yellowstone Park—an area of about 30,000 square miles. This field of operations, a preliminary survey of which was made in 1872, may be more easily conceived by stating that its southern border is equal to the distance from Boston to Philadelphia or Montreal. A geodetic party carried the primary triangulation over this entire region, measuring two baselines one near Rawlins, the other near Bear Lake-locating prominent peaks at intervals of from twenty to thirty miles, building upon them stone monuments for future recognition, and travelling at least five hundred miles. Thirty stations were occupied and eleven more used as primary points, and an average of eight angles were measured at each station occupied. At the close of the season, the triangulation was connected near Ogden with that of the Fortieth Parallel Survey.

This region was also divided into three sections, each of which was covered by a distinct party, fully equipped for topographical and geological work: two of these divided between them the southern portion, including all the less diversified desert region; while the third took the elevated district in the northwest, in the immediate vicinity of the Yellowstone Park.

The southeast, or Sweetwater division, as it was called, embraced an area of nearly 11,000 square miles, extending northward to 41° 45′ N. lat., and westward to 109° 30′ W. long. In working this area, one hundred and seventy-one principal topographical stations were occupied, besides twenty or more subsidiary stations; eighty or more stone monuments were erected. While many of these stations, owing to the extremely desolate and irreclaimable character of the country surveyed, will probably never be used as initial points for detailed surveys, there still remain many others, which will be of great value as starting-points for isolated pieces of rectilinear work, where fertile valleys and oases in the desert country are rapidly coming into demand by settlers. The most important of these fertile valleys lie in the mountainous region to the north, in the upper waters of tributaries of the Platte and Yellowstone; and into this district a rectilinear survey was pushed by measuring a guide-meridian from the railway north, and the establishment of base-lines within the region itself. The guide-meridian had to be measured over seventy-five miles of desert country, where water was extremely scarce. Owing to threatened danger from hostile Indians, who were known to be in the vicinity of the Big Horn Mountains, the party was obliged to leave in the northeast about eight hundred square miles of unexplored territory.

The southwest, or Green River division, was a rectangle of similar size to the last, but the surveying party extended its work a little beyond its western limits, so that 12,000 to 13,000 square miles were surveyed. This area contains a greater extent of hilly country, but none so elevated as that in the northern portion of the Sweetwater district; and in it nearly three hundred and fifty stations and locations were made, more than fifty of which were marked with stone monuments. The party found the Green River basin a broad, flat, almost unbroken expanse, covered mainly with sage-brush and scattered bunch-grass, but the bottom lands well grassed and wooded. In the broken country to the west, the more elevated portions were heavily timbered, the hilly parts grasscovered, and the valleys filled with good soil, easily irrigable.

The Teton division to the north extended to the borders

« AnteriorContinuar »