ful as it echoed in the lofty dome. It was impossible to hear a word spoken: nor could this scene be contemplated long, there was something too fearful for the strongest nerves, when trying to peer into these horrible depths. We turned away and looked towards the entrance; for a short distance the sides and arch were lighted up, but the great space and vast dome were lost in darkness. I sat down about fifty yards from the entrance, and in the twilight made a sketch of the scene. On leaving the cavern we passed round some jutting rocks, and then entered the narrow chasm beyond. Its bed was covered with large and small rounded stones-proving that water had once flowed through this part of the gorge, and I have no doubt it still does during the great storms in the mountains. As we proceeded onward, the ravine narrowed into a mere rent, with overhanging crags, rendering the place dark and gloomy. Our progress was slow and difficult, and we encountered many real dangers. Having emerged from the ravine, we looked down on the last low ridge; this appeared about three miles across, and at a short distance beyond we saw the fire of our companions blazing brightly. From this place the descent was steep; we hurried on, and shortly afterwards I was sitting at our camp fire, not sorry at having safely concluded an adventurous day's journey of sixteen hours; but the toil was not unrewarded: I had convinced myself that the water which had burst from the lake had formed the enormous channel through the plain.

Notes on the Russo-Chinese Frontier and the Amoor River.
By W. G. BLACKIE, Ph.D., F.R.G.S.

The author remarked that the river Amoor claimed attention in consequence of the command of its navigation having passed into the hands of the Russians, by whom it had been opened to commerce and employed as a means of transporting provisions, munitions of war, and supplies of troops to her forts on the Pacific. It was one of the largest rivers in Asia, being only exceeded in length by the Yangtze in China, and the Yenessei and Lena in Siberia. From having direct communication with the North Pacific Ocean, it was superior as a commercial highway for conducting intercourse with foreign countries to the other rivers of Northern Asia, all of which flowed into the almost inaccessible parts of the Arctic Sea. After describing briefly the origin and general course of the river, which is navigable for steamers throughout its whole course to the junction of the Shilka and the Argun, a distance of probably 1500 statute miles, the paper proceeded to give a sketch of the history of the Russian settlements in the Amoorland, land, and their relations with China from the middle of the 17th century to the opening of the Amoor to Russian navigation, ceded by the Chinese in 1847, and the subsequent establishment of the fort of Nikolajewsk, at the mouth of the river. The advantages thus gained by Russia were made apparent in 1854 and 1855, when large stores of munitions of war were transported from Siberia to Shilkinsk and thence down the Shilka and Amoor to the North Pacific, at a saving of nearly 3000 miles of land carriage. A more detailed account then followed of the chief features of the river, the territory through which it runs, and the native tribes inhabiting its banks. In regard to the suitableness of the district for colonization, the genial climate prevailing at the southern bend of the Amoor was adverted to, as evinced by the existence of the wild-vine, and the production of an excellent quality of tobacco. The season during which the river is open for navigation from the ocean was stated to be from about the middle of June to the commencement of October. At Kisi, however, the Amoor is free of ice for six months, while the Bay of Castries is open for eight months; and to ensure a longer season for navigation than is attainable from Nikolajewsk, the construction of a railway is said to be contemplated between Kisi and the Bay of Castries. The author remarked likewise on the great advantage likely to accrue to Russia from the facilities afforded by this river to East Siberia for sending her mineral and other riches to the ocean, and receiving foreign articles in return at a much lower price than formerly. In regard to the trade with China also, it was observed that a portion of the merchandise, now annually sent overland to Siberia by Kiachta, might in future be transported by sea to the mouth of the Amoor, and thence up the river to the interior of the country. Attention was directed to the circumstance of an active trade being already carried on by the United States with the Russian station at Nikolajewsk, and the inference drawn that such a commerce must be equally advantageous to Great Britain, the voyage from London, Liverpool, and Glasgow to Nikolajewsk being as short as from New York; while from Singapore, Hong-Kong or Vancouver's Island, it is shorter than from San Francisco.

Notice of the Kanikars, a Hill-Side Tribe in the Kingdom of Travancore. By Astronomer BROUN, F.R.S.

On the Extension of Communications to Distant Places by means of Electric Wires. By Major-General CHESNEY, R.A., D.C.L., F.R.S.

The special object of his paper, he said, was to urge the necessity of multiplying the telegraphic communications of this country with all parts of the globe, and especially to propose a new electric route between England and America. He regarded electric wires as the pioneers of vast social changes; and if this view were correct, those which at present existed would form but a small portion of that great network of "swift messengers," which, if Great Britain desired to maintain her present mercantile supremacy, must speedily connect the principal parts of the world. This country, in fact, must follow the example of other countries; for, if it were content to see one portion of the Anglo-Saxon race far in advance of itself, and America enjoying the lightning-like intercourse with every portion of her vast continent, it would probably not remain equally satisfied to see Russia turning her vast means to such an account as might secure to her in future what she had in the case of the late treaty with China-priority by fully a fortnight of the most important commercial intelligence. After pointing out the many respects in which a country derived advantages from being able instantly to send communications to distant places, the writer gave a summary of some of the principal lines of telegraph which have been made in various parts of the world, or are in the course of construction. When addressing this Section of the British Association last year, on the importance of railway communication with India, he endeavoured to show that one line of electric telegraph might be laid down from headland to headland, along the Red Sea, and another through Arabia, partly in the bed of the Tigris. Both had been commenced, and each would probably meet with difficulties, and even interruptions, but only for a time, as the Porte was prepared to give the necessary protection. Ere long, he hoped, both would be in full operation, and, by having a double line, the communication would be kept up by one set of wires, in case of any accident to the other. He suggested, that for still greater security, a third line should be carried to the Persian Gulf. The latter would cross the Black Sea either from the Danube or Varna to Trebizond, which is shorter than the former line to Balaklava. It would pass without any difficulty or danger by Erzeroum, Tabriz, Teheran, and Ispahan to the Persian Gulf at Bushire. Moreover, the Shah is ready, and even anxious to do the Persian portion of this line himself. He thought that, independent of the advantages of having three lines, in case of any interruption, sufficient employment would be found for all three. It was evident that it was equally important that electric messages from this country to America should not depend upon a single cable. Full employment would be given at all times to several sets of wires; and as it was now certain that submarine communications with America were quite practicable, at least two additional cables should be laid down across the Atlantic. He thought that the difficulty caused by the distance between Iceland and Newfoundland might be greatly lessened by taking another route to the latter; namely, that of Iceland and Greenland, as by this line the greatest distance from land to land would not exceed 430 miles. The ice and the icebergs appeared to be the only difficulties likely to be encountered, and he thought they would not prove to be very serious. But as the latter when floated do not, and in fact cannot touch the bottom, it is the opinion of Sir Roderick Murchison, and other eminent men also, that the proposed line is eminently practicable.

On Dr. Prichard's Identification of the Russians with the Roxolani.
By RICHARD CULL.

On the Physical Geography of the Neighbourhood of Bombay, as affecting the Design of the Works recently erected for the Water Supply of that City. By H. CONYBEARE, C.E., F.G.S.

The water is collected in an immense reservoir, the largest in the world, about fourteen miles from Bombay. This reservoir is made by damming up a portion of the valley of the Ghoper, and the full extent of it is 1394 acres. As the rains fall only once in a year, it is necessary to have a store of water for a twelvemonth's consumption, and this is now supplied. There were both engineering difficulties and facilities in the work undertaken, and these were described by the author. The 700,000 inhabitants of Bombay were now well supplied with water. There were self-closing public conduits in the streets for the supply of the poor. In these works it had been necessary to guard against offending the feelings or prejudices of the native inhabitants; hence in the valves and other appliances requisite in the distribution of the water neither leather nor animal fat could be used.

On the Effects of Commixture, Locality, Climate, and Food on the Races of

Man. By J. CRAWFURD, F.G.S.

The writer gave a review of the commixture of various nations, its effects on the mental faculties of the different populations, their physical characteristics, and language. He glanced at the effects of a change of climate upon any particular race. It did not appear, he said, that colour and the more prominent physical attributes, or mental capacity, had any necessary connexion with climate; nor did he think that climate altered the physical form and mental faculties of a race transferred from its original locality to a new one. He then pointed out, at some length, that the varieties of climate had a great influence upon the mental powers of a people; and proceeded to consider, under the last head of his paper, the question of diet in relation to the physical and mental character of a people. The physical character of a race, he said, did not seem to be in any respect altered by the nature of the vegetable diet of which it partook, provided the quantity were sufficient and the quality wholesome; but when the question of the diet of a people related to mental development, the quality assumed an important aspect. No race of man, it might be safely asserted, ever acquired any respectable amount of civilization that had not some cereal for a portion of its food.

Observations on the Lake District. By J. DAVY, M.D., F.R.S.

In this paper the physical geography of the Lake District was chiefly treated of in relation to the varied beauty of its scenery, the peculiarities of its climate, and the character of its native population. Its beauty was referred to several circumstances, such as the admirable intermixture of the wild and cultivated, of lake, mountain and meadow; the graceful forms of the lower hills (attributable to glacial action) contrasted with the asperities of the higher, the mountain ridges and peaks; the youthful freshness of the woodlands, chiefly coppice, carefully attended to and regularly cut, not without admixture of ornamental planting. Its climate was described as most remarkable for summer coolness and winter mildness, for the large amount of rain (partly the cause of both) without unusual frequency of showers, and with moderate dryness of air, connected with absence of clay and a rapid drainage. The people of the district, chiefly pastoral in their occupation, of robust make, and of Norse origin, were made mention of as marked for good sense, and for thrift in their dealings, rather than for imaginative power. In concluding, attention was called to the influence of localities on health, and to the beneficial effects of residencies at certain heights, approaching 1000 feet above the level of the sea. In proof of the salubrity of the climate (apart from the ill-drained towns and villages), the exemption hitherto of its dales from cholera was adduced, and the longevity of its dalesmen.

On Pacific Railway Schemes, as communicated by the Earl of Malmesbury to the President of the Royal Geographical Society. By Consul DONOHOE.

On the Configuration of the Surface of the Earth.
By the Rev. J. DINGLE.

Assuming, on the usual grounds, that the earth is a body that has cooled down from a state of incandescence, the author pointed out how the natural consequences of that hypothesis are distinctly traceable in the present configuration of the earth, so as to afford a general sketch of its history. From the relations which the mountain systems bear to each other and to the land, he inferred that the germs of them had originated about the same time in the earliest period of the earth's crust. The currents of a primitive ocean, as determined by known physical laws and modified by the mountain systems already formed, appeared to him necessarily to have led to the formation of the great continents in their present position, and when taken in connexion with the vertical forces operating from beneath, to account for all their geographical and geological features so far as they have hitherto been investigated.

Language no Test of Race. By the Rev. G. C. GELDART.

First, in a negative point of view, it was attempted to show that language is too uncertain an ethnological test to be of any practical value. This was instanced by the complete discrepancy which exists at this moment between the races and the languages of the British Isles. Cumberland and Cornwall, for example, in language, agree with London, and disagree with Wales; while, as to race, it is directly the reverse. Also, by the agreement in speech, notwithstanding the wide disconnexion of race between the Israelites and the Canaanites-the genuine Arabs and the Arabicspeaking populations in Asia and Africa-the Turks and the Greek-Christians in Anatolia-the Romans and their subjects in Spain, Gaul, Etruria, &c. the Germans and the Sclavonians now absorbed by them in Prussia and North Germany-the Bulgarians and the Sclavonians, -the Magyars and the Ckomanians-and by many similar examples; the accumulative evidence of all amounted to this, that since in so many cases where the ethnological indications of language can be compared with the actual testimony of history, the latter completely contradicts the former, "a common language is" not even "prima facie evidence in favour of a common lineage."

It was remarked that the probability of language being a fallacious test of race must increase in direct proportion to the complexity of the particular race's experiences. But since it is plain that without the aid of history we can never calculate the degree of this complexity (from the fact that all barbarous nations show signs of decadence from a lost civilization), there is no more ground in the case of the most savage than of the most civilized race, to assume that the existing language is the original one. In Australia, e. g., the native languages are radically one; but this forms no conclusive proof of the unity of the races, in the absence of historical evidence of this one language having been in primitive times common to them all. Its diffusion may very possibly be the result of artificial influences of which no record exists.

Secondly, in a positive point of view, it was shown that in all the instances above cited, there had taken place between the races, a close assimilation of (1) Political, (2) Religious, (3) Intellectual, or (4) general Social relations, or of any, or all of these combined; and it was suggested that it is such an assimilation, and not unity of race, that unity in language rightly typifies. The principle was applied in detail. Thus, in Cumberland and Cornwall, the assimilation in language with London was exhibited as the result of a loss of that national feeling, the permanence of which in Wales has preserved the provincial Celtic; and not as the sign of a greater commixture of races in the two former districts than in the last. The community of language between the Abrahamidæ and the Canaanites was referred to their social intercourse from the time of Abraham's migration into Canaan, until Jacob's descent into Egypt. The prevalence of Arabic or Turkish, in countries where Islam is dominant, represented the extent to which the Mahometan conquest has affected the habits and institutions of its subjects. The existence of the Neo-Latin languages was interpreted as a mark of the eagerness of the Roman provincial to obtain the 'civitas,' and with it to adopt the Latinitas.' The Teutonic speech which has overwhelmed the Wendish and Prussian languages in North Germany was the measure of the military and political force of the Teutonic Order and the "Römische Reich." The Sclavonic of modern Bulgaria was attributed to the action of that church of which Cyril and Methodius were the founders; and the Magyar language in the Ckomanian districts of Hungary was accounted for by the contented adhesion of the Ckomans to the Hungarian constitution.

The sum of the whole was, that it is not safe to infer from affinity between the language of two nations more than this, that there was a time when there existed between them civil, religious, or some sort of social relations. Language was the product and token of a nation's political, moral, or intellectual, but not of its physical constitution. It would not reveal a people's genealogy, but its mental and social history. Should it ever be proved that all languages were derived from one original, the sole valid inference would be, that at some time one sovereign race had imposed upon all the rest its own political or social institutions, while the great question of the number of races would remain just where it stood.

A Short Notice of the People of Oude, and of their leading Characteristics, By H. M. GREENHOW.

The Sepoys of the late Bengal army deserve a short notice. Drawn principally from respectable agricultural families in Oude, they were often the younger sons of such families. Fine, tall, athletic men, with handsome features generally, and wellknit frames, they were the very flower of the youth of Oude. Fond of their homes, and having occasional furlough even if serving in the distant stations of the Bombay Presidency, or in Burmah-for the purpose of visiting them; enjoying sufficient pay, and the prospect of pension after faithful service; having, too, certain privileges of their own, more especially at the Court of Lucknow, before that Court was abolished, the Sepoys of Oude were a set of men honoured by their own people and trusted by their officers. When led in battle by the latter they were brave and faithful; on the march or in cantonments they were orderly and obedient; in private intercourse they were gentle and polite. Ignorant, bigoted, and prejudiced they always were; and to ignorance, bigotry, and prejudice may be in a great measure ascribed the ease with which, in the hour of trial, their ears were opened to the voice of treason, and they forgot their honour aud their oaths. The author added, that the treachery and cruelty which seem to be inherent in the Asiatic nature, and which no extent of education had as yet even modified in the natives of India, showed itself in the Sepoy character during the late mutiny in an unmistakeable and repulsive form. The paper gave various details in connexion with the characteristics of Oude and its inhabitants.

On the Geometrical Projection of two-thirds of the Surface of the Sphere. By Colonel H. JAMES, R.E., F.R.S., Superintendent of the Ordnance Survey. Two maps were exhibited which were drawn on this projection, and described by Colonel James. The hemisphere was first projected by Hipparchus 200 years before Christ, but this is the first time that a geometrical projection of more than a hemisphere has been made. One of the maps exhibited contained the North circumpolar regions, and all Europe, Asia, Africa, and America; the other contained the South polar regions and the Pacific Ocean, with a large portion of North and South America and of Asia. The peculiar advantage of the projection consists in the accurate representation which it gives of the relative position of all parts of the earth to each other, an advantage which no other projection possesses, and which cannot be obtained even from the inspection of a globe.

On the General Distribution of the Varieties of Language and Physical Conformation, with remarks upon the Nature of Ethnological Groups. By R. G. LATHAM, M.D., F.R.S.

The principle which he held was that, in ethnological investigations, the method which ought to be pursued was that of the geologist rather than the historian-the