by severe gales which have done great damage on various parts of the coast, as well as inland. Continued rain, together with the melting of snow, has caused the floods to increase, and the combined effect of inundation and furious winds has been calamitous in many districts. At Dover great damage was done to the Admiralty Pier. At Brighton the gale was accompanied by a very high tide, and a previously existing breach in the sea wall was thus increased. Many of the shops in the King's Road had to be closed, in order to prevent the windows from being blown in. At Cliftonville, during the height of the storm, the waves washed over the roofs of three-storied houses. At Eastbourne, the sea carried away about 150 yards of the pier.

From the Orkney Islands, all along the east coast, from the Channel, from both sides of the Irish Sea, tidings come of a renewed and heavy gale. Piers and sea-walls have been destroyed, vessels wrecked, wharves flooded, and the basements of houses that were thought at a safe distance from the sea have been filled with water by the last tides. In the interior, a heavy rainfall is recorded, while snow has fallen in Yorkshire, and the destruction to the crops has been immense. In many parts the only possible communication is by boat. Wide and low-lying flats, deep valleys, and mountainous districts appear to have suffered in almost equal degree, whether from the rising of rivers, as in Huntingdonshire, or from the descent of torrents, as in Wales and other hilly parts of the kingdom.

The storm which prevailed in Scotland for a fortnight, and which it was hoped had passed away, was renewed on Wednesday, the 3rd, with great severity. Quite a gale from the eastward raged all along the north coast, and the sea was very rough. In the night snow fell heavily in blinding showers.

The floods which came on Monday night, the 1st, into the cellars and lower rooms of the houses on the south side of the Thames in London, were renewed at subsequent tides. After the people had made great efforts to get rid of the water, their precautions against a return of the calamity have been washed away. All along the southern side of the river there is much suffering. The people are crowding in neighbours' houses, where they cannot be accommodated in the mission churches and schoolrooms. which have been opened and soon fitted for the temporary shelter of the homeless. The loss of furniture, clothes, and domestic articles by the poorest classes has been very great. Several local committees, headed by the clergymen of the neighbourhoods, have been formed to collect subscriptions for the alleviation of the distress amongst those rendered temporarily homeless.

A tremendous gale raged, last Tuesday, on the Atlantic coast of France. The cable to this country was broken, houses were destroyed, and some custom-house officers were drowned.

According to a statement made by Mr. Glaisher, the rainfall in the month of December was very nearly six inches, there having

Fear

aroused by his taking measurements of their heads, extremities, &c. ing for their reindeer, their property (and possibly for the heads in question), they packed up their goods, and those of the traveller, and carried him together with them into the interior. The collections he had made suffered at the hands and stomachs of the Samoyedes, as they destroyed his insects, and drank the preserving alcohol. Two fishermen, who had heard of his adventures, rescued him from the Karim, Tundra Coast.

Jenissei. The expedition under the leadership of Dr. Hjalmar Shéel, of Upsala, travelled by Nischni Novogorod, Perm, Tjumez, Tomsk, and Krasnojarsk, arriving at the last place on June 8. The Jenissei has a length of about 1,660 English miles below Krasnojarsk; the high banks are in places clothed with Pinus obovata, and cembra, and larch. The Russian population was found to be very sparse and uncivilised in the Jenissei Valley. They live mostly on fish, numerous varieties of which were studied by the expedition. Altogether, about 150 species of birds were observed, of which only about thirty or forty were extra-Scandinavian. Many new mosses were discovered, and many botanical curiosities secured.

The year 1877 saw the veil of mystery lifted that had hung over the western side of equatorial Africa. The exploration of the interior had hitherto been confined to the series of Lakes Victoria and Albert Nyanza, Tanganika, &c., and Livingstone, striking across from Lake Tanganika, had discovered the Lualaba, concerning which we had occasion to speak last year in connection with that explorer and Cameron. After this, he had devoted his attention to the head waters of the river and the lake Bemba, being of opinion that the Lualaba was the Nile itself. The grand old explorer laid down his life which he had so often risked in the course of these explorations, and an expedition under Mr. Stanley, fitted out at the expense of the New York Herald and Daily Telegraph newspapers, went in search of him. His remains were sent back to England, and Stanley determined to follow up the course of the Lualaba, and open up the mysterious countries it waters. Its course, says Stanley, was debated by the fishermen and traders of the country with as much energy as by the members of the Geographical Society of London. The Arab traders of Nyangwe tried to dissuade the hardy traveller by stories of the most fearful and wonderful nature; of dwarfs, cannibals, and gorillas; but, says Stanley, "I had a few young men who knew what we could do in the way of fighting." The scientific men who had read Livingstone's and other travellers' accounts of Africa were of opinion that the quantity of water in the Lualaba, and its situation and course, made it impossible for it to be the Nile, and Schweinfurth's discoveries made it appear that it must be the Congo. Stanley's account of the 1,800 miles of river, between Nyangwe and the mouth of the river, is as follows:-The Livingstone (as he calls the river), from the moment it leaves Lake Bemba, skirts, at about a distance of 200 miles, the mountains which shut in Lake Tanganika on the west, and clings to that extraordinary region for some time. By a series of powerful affluents it drains the entire western versant of the lake regions as far as 4° N. latitude. At the equator the river turns north-west, and sinks into a lower bed, having reached the great plains which extend between the maritime mountain region and the lake mountain region. Here the Livingstone is joined by the Aruwini (the Welle of Schweinfurth), which, Stanley says, will be a river of immense importance in African navigation. Here the river spreads over an enormous channel, and

the banks swarm with cannibals. Stanley remarks, in selecting the main stream, and in distinguishing the main land from the numerous islands, that the land was inhabited, the islands not often so (below the Aruwini). As Stanley says, the interests of the natives with those of geography appear to be at variance in the region of the Aruwini; and food was procured at the risk of life. He says, trade has hitherto been conducted from hand to hand, and as the balance of power is pretty well established, only three tribes have overcome opposition-viz., the Waringa, the Wa-Mangala, and Wyzanzi. Stanley had to fight the Mangala, and soon afterwards discovered the largest affluents of the Livingstone, namely, the Kaseye, which is nearly as important as the main river itself, from which it differs in the colour of the water. A little after passing E. long. 18°, Stanley came to a river called by the natives Ibari Ukutu, and on European maps, such as they are, called the Kwango. A little E. of long. 17°, occur the falls, which extend over a region of nearly 180 miles, to the Lower Livingstone; in the 180 miles the fall is 585 feet. In this region, fortunately for Stanley, the peoples were not hostile, and the tribes after this appear to have given him little trouble, being much given to trade. Stanley criticises Captain Tuckey's account and map of the Lower Livingstone with considerable sharpness-a sharpness which, considering the circumstances, is perhaps hardly called for. Mr. Stanley says, his experiences of the river extend over a period of about nine months; the highest rise was from May 8 to 22, and was caused by the periodical rains. This flood improves the navigation above the cataracts, but makes them themselves much more formidable. The rise varies accord

ing to the channel from 8 to 20 feet. Above the lower falls, the country is thickly inhabited, more so, says Stanley, than at any place in Africa except Ugogo. The towns are described as being, some of them, two miles long, with good houses and streets, superior to anything in East Africa. Every thought in these countries, says Stanley, is engrossed in trade, and fairs and markets abound. The produce of Africa: cotton, india-rubber, ground nuts, sessamum, copal, palm kernels, &c., is to be procured; and ivory seems so plentiful as to be almost worthless. Stanley's expedition was not made without the loss of thirty-five men; one of them, Francis Pocock, being drowned, under very melancholy circumstances, at one of the lower falls. Pocock was born and bred a Medway fisherman, and is described by Stanley as being altogether too bold, and his death is attributed to his contempt for danger.

To sum up the character of the Livingstone, Stanley says, it is to Africa what the Amazon is to America, containing water enough for three Niles, and being better suited to navigation between its cataracts.

An expedition was made during the years 1876-7 by the Italian traveller D'Albertis, up the Fly River in New Guinea. The expedition established the existence of high mountains inland, a short and safe passage from the Fly River to Moatta, and the existence of much fertile soil.

M. Wojeikoff made a journey round the world for the purpose of studying Meteorology. He visited a part of Japan never before seen by Europeans, and collected some valuable information concerning the Ainos tribe which inhabits it.

The frightful famine in India during 1877 made the papers on the connection between sun-spots and rainfall, which came from the pens of several competent persons, of the deepest interest. Professor Archibald, of Calcutta, concludes, from his observations, that the winter rainfall of

Northern India varies inversely as the sun-spots, in a well-marked manner, in the northern provinces. Mr. Baxendeli holds that the rainfall even in the temperate zone is affected by sun-spots, while in North America the coincidence is not established, but the observations on this continent have been less fully carried out than in the before-mentioned countries. At Madras the subject has been carefully investigated by Dr. Hunter, but the whole subject is under consideration.

The discoveries of minor planets during the year were Myrrha, by Perrotin at Toulouse, Ophelia, by Borelly at Marseilles, Baucis by the same. Others by Watson, United States, Peters of Clinton, United States, by Paul Henry of Paris, by Palisa at Pola, and another by Watson at Ann Arbor, United States.

Mr. Glaisher reports that the committee on luminous meteors have to record a year of very active research and successful observations on shooting stars, fire-balls, and aerolites since their last report. The autumn and winter produced some very large fire-balls, some of which were of special interest. Two, if not more, aerolites have fallen in America, and one at Constantine in Algeria. A large meteor passed over Cape Colony. Much of the attention of the committee was engaged in examining and comparing the star showers-the August star shower was below the average in quantity. The Paris observatory added this year to its instruments (through the generosity of M. Bischoffsheim) a transit circle of great excellence. This, as well as the great telescope of the western equatorial, are from the workshop of M. Eichens, and show the revolution which has been made in astronomical instruments by the use of cast iron and steel instead of fine brass work, such as was formerly used, and the appliances of the engineer to castings and metalwork. This revolution was begun by Sir G. Airy about 1847, and M. Leverrier, whose death we have to deplore during the past year, followed suit. The tubes of the microscopes are formed in the block of marble itself which forms the upper part of the pillar, and are consequently part of the wall, and cannot be disarranged as long as the wall stands. The circle bears 4.320 equidistant marks, and tenths of a second of an arc may be observed. A level, which during the observations is raised by a crane fixed to the ceiling, serves to measure and correct the inclination of the axis of rotation. The cross wires during the day stand out on the clear back-ground of the sky; at night a gas lamp throws a ray of light on them through a prism.

On August 19 a telegram to M. Leverrier of Paris announced the discovery by Professor Asaph Hall (of the United States Naval Observatory at Washington) of two satellites of Mars, and one of these was observed at the Paris Observatory on August 27. M. Leverrier characterises this discovery as one of the most important of modern astronomy," and America may well be proud of the astronomical, as well as the other scientific honours gained by her this year. Sir W. Herschel says that when an object has been once found with a large telescope, it may be seen with a much smaller one, and it is a confirmation of this remark that the satellites have been seen by several observers in England and on the Continent since their discovery. One of the satellites is reported by Mr. Common of Ealing to be ruddy, even more so than the planet.

A comet was discovered by M. Borelly on February 9. This was afterwards observed at many places in Europe, and a diameter of 77,000 miles attributed to it. As will be found recorded elsewhere, M. Borelly has discovered two planets during the year.

PART II.

CHRONICLE

OF REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES

IN 1877.

JANUARY.

1. PROCLAMATION OF THE EMPIRE IN INDIA.-Her Majesty Queen Victoria was to-day (New-Year's Day) proclaimed Empress of India, at Calcutta, Bombay, Madras, and Delhi. It was at the last-named place, however, that the principal ceremony took place-Lord Lytton, the Viceroy, presiding at a magnificent assemblage, including sixty-three ruling chiefs. The proclamation was made in English, Bengali, and Hindustani, at a durbar which was held on the Maidan, at noon. It was followed by a feu de joie, and the National Anthem was played by the bands of the troops present. An address was then delivered in the three languages, and certificates of honour were presented to sixty-one native gentlemen. The ceremony was concluded by a march past of the troops.

At Madras Her Majesty's title of Empress of India was officially proclaimed by the President of the Council, from the steps of the Townhall. The reading of the proclamation was followed by a Royal salute. A reception was held at the Government House in the evening, and there was a grand display of fireworks, the city being brilliantly illuminated and the streets gaily deco-rated in honour of the occasion. Loyal addresses to the Empress were drawn up by the Corporation and the Hindoo community. There was a grand parade of the troops on the island.

The proclamation of Her Majesty's title of Empress of India was made at Bombay by the Hon. Alexander Rogers, senior member of the Council of the Governor. The reading of the Proclamation was followed by a Royal salute. The good-conduct prisoners, and those deserving of consideration, both European and native, of the Poona district and Yerrowda gaols have been

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