ART. XXXVI.-Geographical Notices; by DANIEL C. GILMAN, Yale College Library. No XII.

REPRINT OF A TRACT, BY NICOLAUS SILLACIUS, (A. D. 1494), ON THE SECOND VOYAGE OF COLUMBUS.-Although the principal object of these "Geographical Notices" is to record the recent progress of our knowledge of the world, yet we cannot forbear to make mention of a remarkable publication which pertains to the discovery of the New World at the close of the fifteenth century.

Christopher Columbus, in his second voyage across the Atlantic, set sail from Cadiz, September 25, 1493. Soon after his return, Guglielmo Coma wrote from Spain to Nicolaus Sillacius in Pavia an account of the journey. These letters were translated by Sillacius into Latin, and such other information was added to them as could be gathered from current reports; and this whole account of the voyage of Columbus, was published under the title, "De Insulis Meridiani atque Indici Maris nuper inventis." This curious tract has been almost forgotten for nearly four hundred years; and, at the present time, but two copies of the original edition are known to be in existence,-one belonging to the Marquis Trivulzio of Milan, and the other to James Lenox, Esq., of New York. The last named gentleman, with characteristic liberality, has made this pamphlet accessible to all scholars, by causing it to be carefully re-printed in the original Latin, with an English translation by Rev. James Mulligan, a biographical introduction, notes, and a bibliographical appendix, in which much important information is given in respect to the early printed account of the various voyages of Columbus. The whole work forms a quarto volume of about 180 pages, printed in a truly elegant style.

It cannot be expected that this tract will add very much to what is known from other sources of the great navigator and his voyages, but as a contemporaneous record of most important discoveries, the volume will always be prized not less by the geographer than by the historian and bibliographer.

VOYAGE AROUND THE World of the AUSTRIAN FRIGATE NOVARA. The reference which has been made in a previous page of this number of the Journal to the Austrian circumnavigatory voyage, furnishes us with an appropriate occasion for speaking of that exploring expedition.

The Imperial frigate "Novara," under the command of Commodore von Wüllerstorf, set sail from Trieste April 30, 1857, and returned to the same port August 26, 1859, having successfully completed a voyage of scientific observation around the world,

the first which was ever undertaken by the Austrian Navy. It is of course too early for the results of this expedition to be fully made public, but various accounts of the whole voyage, and of particular observations, have been given in the journal of the Geographical Society of Vienna, and in Peterman's Mittheilungen. L'Institut of Paris has also published a series of articles on the subject, communicated by M. Marschall of Vienna.

The "Novara" is a frigate of 1800 tons burthen, and 44 guns. It was manned by 354 men. The scientific corps, in addition to the commodore and other naval officers, consisted of the following naturalists, viz., Dr. Hochstetter, physicist and geologist; Frauenfeld and Zelebor, zoologists; Dr. Scherzer, ethnologist, having charge also of investigations in national economy, the botanist Jellinek and the artist Selleny.

Sailing, as we have stated, from Trieste, the expedition touched for longer or shorter periods at Gibraltar, (eleven days), Funchal, (nine days), Rio Janeiro, (three weeks), Table Bay, Cape of Good Hope, (twenty-four days), Island of St. Paul, (seventeen days), Point de Galle, (eight days), and Madras, (eleven days). Sailing from the last named port Feb. 10, 1858, from that time until August 11, a period of six months, the vessel was directed to various island and continental seaports of south-eastern Asia, including Nikobar, Singapore, Batavia, Hong Kong, Shanghai, etc. In September the island Puynipet was visited, and afterwards Sydney, (a month), Auckland, (seventeen days), Papeiti, on Tahiti, (eleven days), Valparaiso, (twenty-four days). Leaving the latter port May 11, 1859, the Novara reached Trieste at the end of the following August. The whole extent of the voyage was nearly forty thousand nautical miles.

Various letters and partial reports, submitted to the Academy of Sciences in Vienna, have already been printed, and a complete narrative of the voyage, and full reports of all the scientific observations which were made upon it, is soon to be prepared and printed.

DR. HAYES'S PROPOSED ARCTIC JOURNEY.-A meeting of the American Geographical and Statistical Society was held in New York, March 22, for the purpose of encouraging Dr. Hayes in respect to his proposed voyage to the Northern ocean. Dr. Hayes was present, and, in addition to his statements, an eloquent exhibition of the importance of this expedition, together with an appeal for material aid, was made by Dr. Francis Lieber.

Hon. Geo. Folsom, E. H. Vielè, Esq. Profs. Mitchell and Silliman, and Dr. A. H. Stevens also took part in the meeting, and letters were read in approval of the undertaking from Profs. Bache, Henry, Guyot, Dr. Gould, etc.

The general purpose of Dr. Hayes has already been set forth.

SECOND SERIES, Vol. XXIX, No. 87.-MAY, 1860.

in this journal, in a paper from his own pen, "On the Practicability of Reaching the North Pole," (vol. xxvi, p. 305-23, Nov., 1858.) At the recent meeting it was stated that ten thousand dollars had already been subscribed in aid of his enterprise, and at least ten thousand more are needed to insure the sending forth of the expedition.

The various weighty problems which are proposed for solution, especially the determination whether or not there be an open Polar Sea, present the strongest claims to the liberal contributions of all who are interested in the promotion of geographical discovery, or in the progress of physical science.

JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN GEOGRAPHICAL AND STATISTICAL SOCIETY.-We are informed that this Journal, which has heretofore been published monthly, will hereafter be issued quarterly each number comprising at least 128 royal octavo pages. The first number, announced for the month of April, will comprise nearly 150 pages, consisting in part of original articles by the following writers: Commander Matthew F. Maury, Prof. Alexander D. Bache, Prof. Arnold Guyot, E. George Squier, Paul B. Du Chaillu, Dr. David Livingstone, Joseph C. G. Kennedy, James Wyne, M.D., together with late geographical and statistical intelligence, and careful notices of new scientific works bearing upon the objects embraced in the Society's labors. The subscription price to those not members of the Society will be three dollars a year.

Letters in reference to any matters connected with the Journal should be addressed to DANIEL WILLARD FISKE, General Secretary of the Society, New York.

EXPLORATIONS IN THE AMOOR REGION.-We have already called attention to the great efforts which are making by the Russian government to ascertain the resources and characteristics of Eastern Siberia, and to bring the immense region drained by the Amoor and its tributaries into connection with the commerce of the world. To our own countrymen, these investigations are especially important, when we consider the probable effect which will be produced upon the commerce of the Pacific.

At a recent meeting of the Royal Geographical Society of London, a paper was read, presenting extracts (prepared and translated under the direction of Capt. R. Collinson) from various official Russian reports, respecting the districts adjacent to the Amoor river, These extracts from the writings of Messrs. Pescurof, Vasilief, Radde, Usoltzof, Paragchefski, etc., are printed in the Transac tions of the Royal Geographical Society, vol. 28,-together with an original map compiled by J. Arrowsmith. As our space at the present time allows us to quote but one of these reports, we have selected that by M. G. Radde, upon the table lands east and

southeast of the great Lake Baikal-or, as he terms it, the DáuroMongolian Frontier of the Trans-Baikal region.

"If by the word 'Steppe' be understood an extensive, treeless and arid plain, without any considerable undulations, that term cannot, in its full sense at least, be applied to the tracts now under consideration. Scientifically, and with regard to the formation of its surface, this region should be described as an elevated extent of country, intersected by many bare mountain ranges; the valleys and low plains between which are in some places strongly impregnated with salt, and produce exclusively chenopodea whilst in others they receive the waters of many small springs and atmospheric moisture in the shape of snow and rain, giving rise to innumerable small, turbid, and muddy lakes, seldom containing water fit for use, but more often contaminated with saline and alkaline solutions. An ordinary observer, one who has not penetratrated into the external structure of the earth's surface, or, what is of greater importance, into the properties of the soil from which he derives his sustenance, would see here only a contrast of conditions, namely, the contrast of the wooded surface to the treeless and bare, inducing him to call such a country a steppe. Whether the latter surface be level, or high and undulated, it would equally by him be termed a steppe; and only perhaps in distinguishing two contiguous regions would the mountainous and desert zone be designated as the 'high' steppe.

The Dáur country on the Mongolian frontier cannot, both with relation to its absolute height and its topographical features, be even approximately compared to a regular steppe; nor can any parallel be drawn between the chemical properties of their vegetable strata. Whilst in many regions, as for instance in the extensive Orenburg, Taurida, and Bessarabian steppes, the chernozem, so favorable to cultivation, penetrates the surface to 2 and 3 feet, there is a total absence of organic matters in the woodless valleys of the Dáurian frontier table-lands; and the soil of that extensive region has not undergone any considerable change for many centuries, owing to all the elevations, and frequently the valleys, abounding in siliceous ("jasper and flint") formations, which either do not admit of precipitation at all, or with great difficulty; added to which, the decomposition of hard rocky masses is materially retarded by the dryness of the atmosphere, and the want of snow and rain.

A further exposition will show that, leaving aside the peculiar stamp which characterises the organic nature of this region, the material and moral condition of its scanty population haye succumbed to the influence of the physical conditions abovementioned. The greater part of this desert track, perfectly unsuitable for the production of grain, is apparently, like the inhabited regions of the Gobi desert on the south, destined by na

ture for the nomadic life of the wild and superstitious Mongol, who, spurning the ties of a fixed abode, scours the level plain on his fleet steed.

With respect to geographical position, the Dáurian frontiersteppes occupy a narrow zone between longitude 112° 30' and 119° E.; their chief extension is from west to east, and they are only in a few places intersected by the parallel of 50° N. latitude. If the treeless elevations are alone to be denominated steppes, the boundary of the Russo-Dáurian steppes must be drawn southwards from Nijni-Ulhun frontier station, as the mountains on the banks of the Onon, extending farther west, are covered all over with dense forests; on the east, on the other hand, from the above station, and between Akshinsk and Mogoitu, along the right bank of the Onon, extends a forest of tall trees, the predominating family of which, the pines suddenly disappears a few versts east of Mogoitu, and is succeeded by a straggling wood of birch, as far as Kubuhai.

The steppe district thus only crosses the Onon at Niji-Ulhun, occupying also a small zone, well irrigated with numerous small streams, on its left bank.

In its easterly extension, parallel to the course of the Onon, the steppe is not bounded on the north by this river, but by a very thick forest extending between the Onon and the desert, in some places 10 miles in breadth. This forest is worthy of notice for its historic associations as the sojourn of Chingis-Khan, and also in a botanico-geographical respect, forming, as it does, a natural boundary between the river and the steppe, which is remarkable for its small breadth and its clearly defined limit on the south. The forest thins gradually towards the east, down the Onon, and terminates entirely at the place where the river bends abruptly to the north on meeting the western spurs of the Adoncholon mountains; farther in that direction, with a lesser fall, and often contracted between banks of granite, the river pursues its course as far as its confluence with the Shilka, through a wooded country more frequently overgrown only with bushes.

The frontier steppe, which has already a breadth of about 53 miles between the old Chindan fortifications and the Uldza river, extends towards the south along the confines of this pine forest, acquiring a greater width farther on. The Onon-Borza* rivulet, flowing from the northeast, and which likewise approaches the southern offshoots of the Adoncholon mountains at 116°, and after bending to the north unites after a course of twenty miles with the Onon at Ust-Borzinsk, belongs at its western middle course to the steppe region. In like manner, the more sloping southern

This stream is called Onon-Borza in distinction to the three Borza rivulets which fall into the Argun.