The English could be much improved. A few maps drawn from description and sketches showing the area in relief are interesting. EUGENE VAN CLEEF. The Texas-California Arc of Primary Triangulation. By William 1912. This report contains the results of the arc of primary triangulation which extends from central Texas westward to southern California, connects the triangulation of the 98th meridian and that of the Pacific arc, joins the United States and Mexican boundary surveys at a number of points, and throughout its length furnishes bases from which lower grades of triangulation may be extended for the control of boundary, topographic and other surveys. In the report are given the latitude and longitude of the stations, with azimuths of the lines between them. The scheme of triangulation is more than 1,200 miles in length, and the geographic positions were determined for about 300 stations and objects. This triangulation was completed by one observing party in three seasons, totaling less than seventeen months, which is remarkably rapid for this class of work. Many of the stations were on mountain peaks, some of which were over 10,000 feet in elevation. The maximum length of line observed over was 121 miles, while the average length of lines of the main scheme of triangulation to the westward of El Paso, Texas, was over sixty miles. The angles were measured with a theodolite with a graduated circle twelve inches in diameter, and the observations were made during the day on heliotropes, and at night on signal lamps similar to automobile headlights. The lights from the heliotropes and lamps were clearly visible through the telescope of the theodolite, even over the longest lines. This was due to the very clear condition of the atmosphere. At the eastern end of the arc the theodolite was mounted on towers erected over the station. The report contains illustrations of the instruments used and of the towers. There are a number of illustrations which show the scheme of the triangulation. This arc of primary triangulation is of great geodetic and geographic value. Further facts about this triangulation were printed in the Bulletin, Vol. 43, 1911, PP. 447-448. W. BOWIE. The Wilderness of the North Pacific Coast Islands. A Hunter's Experience While Searching for Wapiti, Bears, and Caribou on the Larger Coast Islands of British Columbia and Alaska. By Charles Sheldon. xvi and 246 pp. Maps, ills., index. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1912. $2. 81⁄2 x 5%. The author is a well equipped, keen observer, judging from the convincing and minute details of his descriptions. Although the book is in the form of a diary, it does not possess the monotony so often characteristic of such writing The fascination of the wilderness of the larger coast islands of British Columbia and Alaska is described quite realistically through an account of a hunt for wapiti, bear and caribou. (The wapiti is commonly known as the American deer.) The islands, under consideration are Vancouver, Montagne, Queen Charlotte and Admiralty, excursions having been made to these islands in the years 1904, 1905, 1906, and 1909, respectively. Of special note is the author's observation of the tendency of the bear to run away from the hunter when disturbed, rather than to charge him, contrary to the stories of most hunters. His evidence is confirmatory. At the close of the discussion of each trip the region traversed is redescribed in a brief summary that causes the reader to desire to follow in his footsteps. Five maps accompany the text; a number of interesting photographs and a few fine drawings from descriptions are distributed throughout the book. An appendix consisting of a description of "A New Bear from Montagne Island, Alaska," and "The Queen Charlotte Islands Caribou," by C. Hart Merriam, notes on some habits of the Montagne Island Bear and an index, complete this pleasing descriptive geographic story. EUGENE VAN CLEEF. Southern Vancouver Island. By Charles H. Clapp. xiii and 208 pp. Map, ills., index. Mem. No. 13, Geol. Surv. Branch, Dept. of Mines, Canada. Ottawa, 1912. This report deals principally with the general geology of the district, but begins with a description of the topography, and closes with fifty pages on economic geology. The description of the topography is especially good because it is based on modern explanatory rather than on old-fashioned empirical methods, and leaves the reader with a fairly clear mental picture of the essential elements of the landscape. One learns that southern Vancouver Island is a mountainous district of folded and faulted belts of resistant volcanics and non-resistant sediments trending northwest-southeast, which was reduced to a peneplain surmounted by considerable areas of monadnocks, then uplifted, maturely dissected, and later submaturely to maturely glaciated. In the central and southern parts of the region remnants of the peneplain surface determine an upland plain which is still an important element in the topography; but farther north and northwest the high monadnock areas give a more rugged scenery; while in the extreme southeast the peneplain surface was entirely destroyed by the removal of crystalline rocks which were evidently non-resistant. Glacial overdeepening of the broad subsequent valleys and narrower transverse valleys was sufficiently extensive to form fairly good troughs which contain lakes, and to develop some fjords along the coast; but hanging valleys are said not to be prominent, and the irregularity of the shoreline is mainly attributed to coastal subsidence. A slight recent elevation is shown by a narrow coastal plain along the southwest coast, now extensively retrograded under wave attack. A sketch map of physiographic provinces would have made clearer certain parts of the text. Photographic illustrations are sufficiently numerous and D. W. JOHNSON. good. SOUTH AMERICA Brazil in 1911. By J. C. Oakenfull. 3d Annual Edition. Feb., 1912. xii and 395 pp. Map, appendix and index. A careful summary of a large variety of information about Brazil. The larger topics are Geography, pp. 1-9; Climate and Diseases, 10-20; Anthropology and Ethnography, 21-31; History, Population, Government, Finance and Transportation, 39-146; Natural History, 147-190; Agriculture, 191-216; Tropical Fruits, 217-237; The Pastoral Industry, 238-248; Geology and Mineralogy, 249-302; Thermal Springs and Tourist Resorts, 303-329; Literature, Art and Science, 330-336. The appendix is a gazetteer of the republic. Chubut. Im Sattel durch Kordillere und Pampa Mittel-Patagoniens (Argentinien). Von Dr. W. Vallentin. 2. Auflage. 205 pp. Ills. Hermann Paetel, Berlin, 1912. 10 x 7. Captain Vallentin is looking for good colonizing ground for Germans. In western Chubut he finds this as he did before in western Neuquen, and draws a vivid picture of the country. Dreary, arid wastes of little promise form the greater part of the province. Exceptions are the well-watered valleys among the Andes and three regions further east. Rio Senguerr in the south, the lands near Camarones on the coast where the deep gullies (cañadones) have water, and the flood-plain of the Chubut River, colonized by the Welsh since 1865. Floods are disastrous in this valley as in most of those in the west. Regulation works are possible in the Chubut valley with development of water power for an electric railroad. This is much needed, for the 300 miles of separation from the coast is the great handicap of the settlements in the Andine valleys, the most promising part of the land. They are producing grain, fruit, vegetables and cattle in abundance. With a market they could increase the output a hundred fold. Chile is much nearer than the Atlantic and Chileans figure largely among the settlers. The valleys are fertile and beautiful, the climate like Europe, but milder. The Argentine government is slow to give title but in some places is granting one and a quarter square miles free to prospective citizens who will build a house and begin cultivation. With a railroad, prosperity will be immediate, and Captain Vallentin fears the English will build it. MARK JEFFERSON. The Flowing Road. Adventuring on the Great Rivers of South America. By Caspar Whitney. 319 pp. Maps, ills., index. J. B. Lippincott Co., Philadelphia, 1912. $3. 9 x 6. This book is a narrative of adventures on several rivers of South America, notably the Orinoco, with its tributaries, the Portuguesa, Apure and Casiquiare; the Rio Negro, of the Amazon system; and the Salado and Feliciano, of the Paraná system. Incidents of land trips in the llanos of Venezuela, forests of Brazil, and Argentine pampas, are also told briefly. There is a closing chapter on outfitting for jungle travel, which contains much sound advice. The The narrative deals chiefly with the interior of Venezuela, in the section where the Orinoco and Amazon tributaries interlock and are linked. things told are the incidents of travel through a wild region, and the abundance of interesting items of natural history which the practical observer gathers in such a journey. Descriptions of the natives and their ways of living are perhaps the most valuable items among the many that are recorded. As a result, the reader is given a rather full idea of the conditions prevailing in the upper valleys of the Orinoco system. The pleasing style, for which the author is already well known, is found fully as effective here as in any of his other books. There are numerous good illustrations. WALTER S. Tower. AFRICA The Temple of Deudûr. Par Aylward M. Blackman. In series: Les Temples Immergés de la Nubie. Service des Antiquités de l'Egypte. 114 pp. Ills., indices. Imprimerie de l'Inst. Français d'Archéol. Orientale, Cairo, 1911. 348 piastres. 14 x 10. This handsome volume, in which both the text and illustrations are by Mr. Blackman, is one of a special series brought out by the Department of Antiquities in Egypt. The studies comprised in that series are devoted to the description of temples a little south of Aswan which are threatened by the raising of the great dam. They are intended to be technical and exhaustive, so that even the more intelligent of winter tourists will scarcely care to attack them, but the professed Egyptologist will be grateful to the Government for the closeness and accuracy of its records. Mr. Blackman is one of the younger Oxford Egyptologists, and had every reason to feel highly complimented when Sir Gaston Maspero selected him to execute this important work. He has performed his task with conscientiousness and care, and the volume is fully equal in quality to any of its predecessors. Of the 120 pages of photographic illustrations all come up to a relatively high standard, while many are conspicuously good. The hieroglyphic texts are well reproduced and the descriptive letterpress is skilfully interwoven with them. The printer has generally been kind, though the spelling "eface" and "sovran" show that his mastery of English was imperfect; and his choice of type for numerals was genuinely unfortunate. The inconsistency between the spelling of "Dendûr" in the letterpress and "Dandour" on the plates should also have been avoided. The author takes every scene in the temple and describes it minutely, according to a set schematic form. Every inscription is reproduced in the conventional hieroglyphic transcription, a difficult and laborious task which those who have attempted it will appreciate. It needs a very highly trained and experienced scholar to detect the original readings on a blurred and worn stone. Even a Lepsius has made many a blunder, and the copies of more than one famous philologist are almost useless, so that the whole value of such work as this depends upon the personal qualifications of the individual. The present reviewer, who has spent many a day with Mr. Blackman under the Nubian sun, is able to certify that his copies have been made with the greatest care, and the honors which this young student has already received from his University are a sufficient guarantee of his linguistic accomplishD. RANDALL-MACIVER. ments. Through Timbuctu and Across the Great Sahara. An account of an adventurous journey of exploration from Sierra Leone to the source of the Niger, following its course to the bend at Gao and thence across the Great Sahara to Algiers. By Capt. A. H. W. Haywood. 349 pp. Map, ills., index J. B. Lippincott Co., Philadelphia, 1912. $3.50. 9x6. The journey began at Freetown, and the first stage was made by the Sierra Leone R.R. to Pendembu; then followed the long trail to Gao, part of which was by caravan and part by river craft, and finally from Gao across the Sahara to Biskra by means of the camel. The second stage of the journey through the western Sudan was taken leisurely, and as the best hunting grounds of the trip were here, the book contains many accounts of the exploits of the sportsman. The chapters are full, too full in fact, of detail of every character: cotton growing, secret societies, marriage customs, bush fires, bird life, native music, tribal marks, superstitions, smuggling; so that the reader is turned first in one direction and then in another, with but a fleeting glimpse of each picture, until at the end he finds that while he has been highly entertained, he has no strong impression, as the result of his reading. The desert trip, a distance of nearly 1,600 miles, which was covered in seventy-five days, is more faithfully described. ROBERT M. BROWN. Notes on Some Languages of the Western Sudan, including 24 unpublished vocabularies of Barth, extracts, from correspondence regarding Richardson's and Barth's expeditions, and a few Hausa riddles and proverbs. By P. Askell Benton. viii and 304 pp. Oxford University Press, London, 1912. 7s. 6d. 7 x 5. A most agreeable surprise lies within this little volume, a store of hitherto unpublished details of the expeditions of Richardson and Barth into Africa south of the Barbary States. The author has had the opportunity to ransack the state papers of the Record Office in London and has unearthed a very considerable mass of information which will be found extremely illuminative of the conditions of these expeditions. This will be found of particular value as filling in the gaps of Barth's narrative. At the time when his work was published there were reasons in external polity why some of his information should be withheld, but no attempt was made to preserve for future use this omitted material. These memoranda, many of them not intended for publication, contain much which it did not then suit the British authorities to allow to be made known. When applied to their proper places in Barth's narrative it will be seen that this new information is a valuable supplement. The linguistic material varies widely in importance. It comprises more or less complete records of 172 words in twenty-four languages of inner Africa, and has hitherto never been accessible. Some of these languages have received more extended treatment by later explorers. Others have been overlaid by the recent encroachments of the trade language of the Hausa, and in the greater convenience of the latter the vernacular has become obsolete. ASIA WILLIAM CHURCHILL. A Half Century Among the Siamese and the Lão. An Autobiography. By Daniel McGilvary. 435 pp. Map, ills., index. Fleming H. Revell, New York, 1912. $2. 81⁄2 x 51⁄2. Here is no pretence of geographical record, a matter with which this pioneer missionary concerned himself not at all. But just because he was a missionary he felt called upon to pioneer along paths which led him to inner and north Siam, even to its border. Just because his journeys were filled with difficulty he was forced to observe the difficulties and the causes from which they arose, and when observed and accounted for they were recorded in his journals. It was an odd turn of affairs which made so many of the earlier missionaries recorders of geography. Foreign missions were a new venture of faith; not wholly accepted by the churches, they had to prove their way; each missioner, therefore, was largely dependent for his support upon his ability to write an interesting account of his labors and the field in which they were prosecuted which might be read at the "monthly concerts" and thus win contributions for his cause. In this volume, summing up his half century of activity in Siam, Dr. McGilvary clung very sedulously to the text of his letters written while events were fresh. It results that the work must take immediate place as the fundamental record of our earliest knowledge of the formerly independent states which, under his observing eye, became the northern provinces of Siam. The sum of the strictly geographical information is remarkably large. WILLIAM CHURCHILL. The Japanese Nation, Its Land, Its People and Its Life. With Special Consideration to Its Relations with the United States. By Inazo Nitobé. xiii and 334 pp. Map, index. G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1912. $1.50. 8x52. No geographer, and still less no layman, should consider his judgment of the Japanese nation down to date and well balanced who has not read this unprejudiced volume. The author writes with a source of knowledge that is first hand, and presents his material with a flow of language that is of unusual literary merit and full of intensive meaning. There are twelve chapters representing as many lectures delivered in six American universities in 1911-12, during which period Dr. Nitobé was exchange professor in this country. While every chapter is worthy of special note, Chapter 5 on "Religious Beliefs" and Chapter II on "The Relation Between the United States and Japan" call for particular mention. Perhaps no phase of Japanese life is so universally misunderstood as the religious attitude. It is doubtful whether one can find a clearer exposition of Shinto and Buddhism in Japan, than in Chapter 5. con One lecture delivered at Leland Stamford Junior University, not included in the twelve, appears as an appendix, owing to the "local allusions" tained therein. An outline map of the Pacific Ocean and bordering lands, with sailing routes between American, Asiatic and Australian ports, follows the appendix. An index completes this valuable contribution to our study of the world's nations. EUGENE VAN CLEEF. The Sea Road to the East. Gibraltar to Wei-hai-wei. Six Lectures. By A. J. Sargent. vii and 124 pp. Maps, ills. George Philip & Son, Ltd., London, 1912. IS. 71⁄2 x 52. This little volume containing six lectures descriptive of critical points en route from the Mediterranean to China, and accompanied by a few photographs, is quite instructive. The photographs are reproductions of some of the lantern slides that have been prepared to accompany the lectures. Because the text, refers to slides not before the reader, some of the statements are not as clear as they might be. However, the vivid style offsets this handicap in most cases and the attention is held throughout. The discussions in general present excellent geographic material for the average lay reader. Of course advanced literary style and completeness of information are almost of necessity lacking; on the other hand, its simplicity of portrayal is in its favor. An outline map of the world (with a photograph of Valetta on the reverse side) showing ocean routes from Europe to the Orient serves as a frontispiece. EUGENE VAN CLEEF. AUSTRALASIA AND POLYNESIA Kaiser-Wilhelms-Land. Beobachtungen und Erlebnisse in den Urwäldern Neuguineas. Von Dr. Eugen Werner. xiv and 314 pp. Map, ills., index. B. Herder, St. Louis, Mo., 1911. $2.35. 921⁄2 x 61⁄2. The strength of this valuable yet wholly unpretentious volume in its exposition of a field scarcely touched, lies in the vivacity of the author's obser |