of this map have been presented to us through the kind offices of our corresponding member Signor Cristoforo Negri, of the Foreign Office of Turin. The geological survey of the island of Sardinia, by General Alberto la Marmora, is still in progress.

The Papal Government has lately published plans on a large scale of some of its principal towns, including Ancona, Pesaro, Perugia, and Civita Vecchia. Those of Bologna, Urbino, Viterbo, Ferrara, and Ravenna are in progress.

The publication of the maps of the trigonometrical survey of the kingdom of Naples appears to have been interrupted for several years since the death of Cavaliere Amante, the head of the Officio Topografico. The King of Naples, however, on the application of the French Government, has consented to allow the French hydrographical surveying expedition, under M. Darondeau, to continue their surveys along his coasts; and it is the intention of that eminent engineer, when he has carried his operations as far as Terracina, to connect them with the Ponza Islands, and perhaps during the present campaign, to carry them as far as the headland of Gaeta, and hereafter to the extremity of the peninsula.

Germany. The instructive series of volumes on the navigable rivers of Germany, written by Heinrich Meidinger, is now complete, and has been presented by the author to our library. The work is entitled 'Die Deutschen Strömme, in ihren Verkehrsund HandelsVerhältnissen mit statistichen Uebersichten;' in four parts, containing the Danube, the Rhine, the Elbe, the Weser, Ems, and Oder.

The topographical surveys of Nassau and another of the Saxon principalities are reported to have been commenced. The Government of Baden have also begun the publication of a map of that territory on the scale of 1 to 200,000.

The travels of Ulrich Jasper Seetzen through Syria, Arabia, and Egypt, in 1802-11, are at length to be published under the superintendence of several German scholars in Berlin. The volumes already issued are entitled Reisen durch Syrien, Palästina, Phönicien, die Transjordanländer, Arabia Petræa, und Unter-Egypten, herausg. und commentirt von Prof. Dr. Kruse, in Verbindung mit Dr. Hinrich, Dr. G. Fr. Müller und Mehreren anderen gelehrten.'

In addition to the Scientific Transactions of various institutions, published in Vienna, Mr. Haidinger has transmitted to us a geological map of the neighbourhood of Krems, on the Danube, by Joh. Czjzek.

Our honorary member, M. de Hammer Purgstall, has presented his

academical treatises on the Camel and on the Arabic names in the Spanish language.

Holland.-Five new sheets of the topographical and military map of the kingdom of the Netherlands, by the officers of the general staff, have been published during the past year, and presented to the Society, together with charts of the coasts of Australia and Java, by the Chevalier Jacob Swart of Amsterdam, our corresponding member. The Royal Institute of Dutch India have also presented several works, specified among our donations, on Borneo, Malacca, and the Dutch possessions, published under its auspices.

Belgium. The Etablissement Géographique at Brussels, under the able management of our associate M. Van der Maelen, continues its useful labours, among which the Carte Administrative et Industrielle de la Belgique,' in 9 sheets, has been added to our collection.

Scandinavia.-The Royal Society of Northern Antiquaries has held its Anniversary Meeting at the palace of Christiansborg, the King of Denmark in the chair, April 29th, 1855. During the last year the learned Secretary, Professor Ch. Rafn, had published a volume of his Annales' for 1853, and the Tidsskrift' for 1852-53; also a portion of Dr. Egilson's Old Norse Poetical Lexicon. During the year 1853, M. Hammershaimb had visited the Faeröe Islands, and made a map of the Island of Vaagö, as well as of some of the other islands. Magnus Grimsson, of Reykjavik, had sent the first part of his Travels in the southern portion of Gullbringu Syssel (or district), and intends furnishing an account of Ingolfs Landnam and the Thingsted on Kjalarnes. Dr. Rink, already so well known for his geographical explorations in Greenland, has presented a new map of Julianehaabs district, besides numerous drawings of remarkable ruins of European buildings in that part of Greenland.

ASIA.

Indian Surveys-Trigonometrical.-The Great Longitudinal Series, extending from the Seronj Base to Kurrachee, is completed. A base of verification has been measured at Kurrachee. The N.W. Himalaya Series, from the Meridional Arc to Peshawur, is also completed, and a base of verification has been measured near Attock. The triangulation along the Indus, to be connected with these two base lines, has been commenced. A Meridional Series from Rahoon, in the Jullender Dooab, is in progress. The N.E. Himalaya Longitudinal Series, extending from the Meridional Arc along the foot of the hills to the meridian of Calcutta, is completed; and a base of verification has been

measured at Sonakoda, on the north of that meridian. The triangulation of the Hurilong and Parasnath Meridians is also completed. Thus the entire triangulation of that portion of the Bengal Presidency, from the Meridional Arc to the Meridian of Calcutta, and from latitude 23° to the Himalaya mountains, is finished. A Longitudinal Series, from the Base at Sonakoda to Assam, has been commenced; and the Southcoast Series, from Calcutta to Ganjam, to connect with the triangulation of Southern India, is nearly completed. The Bombay Trigonometrical Survey is in progress.

Topographical.

The N.W. Himalaya Survey, comprising the British territory from the Sutlej to the frontier of Ladak, is completed. The Survey of the Peshawur District is also completed. The Rawul Pindee and Jailum Survey, and the Ganjam Survey, are in a forward state. The Survey of the Neilgherries is finished. The Hydrabad Survey, which had been suspended on account of the disturbed state of the country, has been resumed,

Revenue. These detailed surveys are based upon secondary triangulation, but, when adjusted by the stations of the trigonometrical survey, are perfectly available for incorporation into the Indian Atlas. Nearly the whole of the north-west and central districts of the Bengal Presidency and several of the lower districts are completed. The Survey of the Districts of Mymunsing, Rajeshaye, Goalpara, Rohilcund, Bundelcund, Saugor, and Nerbudda districts, the Bori and Rechna Dooabs, are in progress.

Forty-eight sheets of the Indian Atlas have been published, and nine more are now being engraved under the superintendence of our associate, Mr. John Walker, Geographer to the Company.

Marine.-A Survey of the Mouths of the Indus, Coast of Scinde and Kutch, Gulf of Kutch, Bate Harbour, the Bombay Bank of Soundings, the eastern part of Palk's Strait, connecting the coast of India at Point Calimere with the north part of Ceylon, the coast of Pegu and Gulf of Martaban; a new Survey of the Strait of Malacca, the north coast of Sumatra, a Chart of the Arabian Seas, showing the winds and currents during the S.W. monsoon, compiled by Lieut. A. D. Taylor, I.N., have been recently published. A valuable set of Charts, showing the winds and currents for each month in the year, in the Indian and China Seas, the Red Sea, and the Persian Gulf, in 36 sheets, by Lieut. Fergusson, I.N., have lately been sent home.

The members who did me the honour to assist at a late evening meeting at my house, will join with me in acknowledgment of the favour conferred upon us, in the exhibition by Mr. Montgomery Martin of his admirable and instructive relief-model of India.

Tibet and China.-In the course of somewhat multifarious reading I have met with no work which has more agreeably occupied my leisure than the two volumes of Chinese Travel, by the French missionary, M. Huc, which form the supplement to the two before published of his exploration of Tibet. Of their literary merit I think there can be no question: it is such as even a foreigner can appreciate without much distrust of his judgment. M. Huc has the talent of dramatizing his intercourse with the natives of the Celestial Empire, and of throwing into every dialogue the odd combinations and incidents which result from the contact of mandarins and missionaries. He is neither harsh in his judgments nor mordant in his satire; but he has a vein of quiet irony which fills his pages with amusement to the reader. With respect to the more important topic of the value of the information contained in these volumes, M. de la Roquette, late the Secretary and now the Vice-President of the French Geographical Society, writes to the effect, that critics of high character for learning and impartiality are not wanting, who declare that if all pre-existing writings on China were destroyed, and those of MM. Huc and Gabet alone preserved, they would suffice to give a more exact and detailed account of that country, than we possess of the greater part of the countries of Asia. Mr. Walker, Geographer to the East India Company, informs us of the high opinion which Sir John Bowring entertains of the value of M. Huc's statements. In a purely scientific point of view, and considered with reference to the means, the opportunities and purpose of his journey, M. Huc must be regarded rather as an intelligent observer of men, manners, and scenery, than as a contributor to our treasuries of accurate geographical data.

According to the Abbé Guillet, M. Krick, and another missionary, en route to Lassa, have been lately murdered on the confines of our Indian territories.

Siberia. It is understood that the Russian Geographical Society is organizing an expedition for the scientific exploration of Eastern Siberia. Japan.-Among recent events which will take rank in the history of the world, is the revival of intercourse which had been nearly closed for some two centuries, between two principal branches of the family of mankind, in the case of the United States expedition to Japan. The interest which I avow for myself in the concerns of that empire is not a new one. A good many years since I endeavoured to bring them under notice here, by contributing to the Quarterly Review' some articles founded on the narratives of the Dutch residents at Nagasaki, then the only European sources of information, Messrs. Meylan, Doeff, and Fischer, whose works in the Dutch language were little, if

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at all, known in England. I confess that at that time I saw little prospect of relaxation in the Japanese code of rigid exclusion without the employment of actual force. Neither could I altogether blame the tenacity with which that Government adhered to a system which, whatever its merits, had procured for that singular country two centuries of complete exemption from foreign war and internal convulsion, civil or religious; and had co-existed with a high state of Oriental civilization, and a very successful cultivation of many of the arts of peace. I knew that the limits of Dutch intercourse were gradually being contracted; that the annual visit to Jeddo had been reduced to one every four years; and I did not expect that any mere demonstration of superior power would be sufficient to induce a departure from the rule adopted on the expulsion of the Portuguese and the suppression of Christianity. The scientific information obtained by Commodore Perry and the officers of his squadron in their two visits to Jeddo, in 1853 and 1854, has not yet reached me in any shape; and what I at present know of the expedition is confined to the report submitted to Congress, principally adverting to the diplomatic and political incidents of his dealings with the Japanese. In the outset of this I was pleased to find that a member of our Society had, with permission of the Admiralty, been able to assist Commodore Perry, by placing in his hands a large quantity of charts of the seas in question. Admiral Sir G. Seymour, then in command in the Pacific, was the channel of this international courtesy, cordially bestowed and handsomely acknowledged. During Commodore Perry's movements in the China seas other opportunities occurred, and were not neglected, of cultivating such honourable and friendly relations between these two distinguished services.

With regard to Commodore Perry's observations on the Bonin Islands, however, it is with some little satisfaction, as members of the Geographical Society, we observe, that the first European occupation was by our President-elect, Admiral Beechey, then in command of H.M.S. Blossom;' and that the islands were next visited by our honorary member, Admiral Lütke, of the Russian navy. Captain Coffin, who, according to Commodore Perry, had visited the islands four years before Admiral Beechey, was well known as an Englishman to Mr. Arrowsmith and other geographical friends.

Borneo.-Two illustrated volumes have issued in the course of the last two years from the press of Amsterdam, furnishing very detailed accounts of the rivers of South-eastern Borneo. They are from the pen of Dr. Schwaner, formerly a member of the Commission for Natural Science in Dutch India, who in that capacity had, between 1843 and 1847, performed several journeys of exploration in Borneo,