Geographical Notes | Nature

ABSTRACT THE anniversary meeting of the Royal Geographical Society was held on Monday last, Sir Rutherford Alcock, vice-president, in the chair. From the Council report it appears that there

is no diminution in the number of Fellows, notwithstanding the losses from various causes. From a financial point of view, the Society continues to prosper, its assets being set down at

over 37,000_l_., exclusive of its valuable map collection and library, both of which have received large accessions during the past year. It will be interesting to practical geographers to

learn that considerable progress has been made with the revision of the classified register of maps and the preparation of an alphabetical catalogue of all the maps in the Society's

collection and publications, and especially that the new catalogue is being prepared with a view to its being subsequently printed. We are also informed that a case containing a set of

traveller's instruments, such as the Society recommend, has been placed in the map-room. At the conclusion of the report the royal medals were presented to Count Schouvaloff, the

Russian ambassador (for Col. Prejevalsky), and General Sir Lintorn Simmons, R.E., G.C.B. (for Capt. W. J. Gill, R.E.), after which came the presentation of the Public Schools' Prize

Medals, the award of which we have already recorded, and some interesting remarks on the teaching of geography, by the Rev. G. Butler, headmaster of Liverpool College. The Hon. G. C.

Brodrick announced the subject for next year's examination would be “Western Africa, from the Sahara to the Congo, and as far eastwards as Nyangwé.” The Earl of North-brook was elected

president, and among the new members of council are General R. Strachey and General Sir H. L. Thuillier, late head of the great Trigonometrical Survey of India, both of whom are well known

as scientific geographers. The Society being without a president, the annual address on the progress of geography was delivered by Mr. Clements R. Markham, the senior secretary. The chief

items of news are that Lieut. R. C. Temple, of the 1st Gurkhas, has constructed a map of a large tract of previously unknown country between Candahar and Dehra Ghazi Khan, and has promised

to furnish an account of the region, and that Mr. Whitely is about to attempt an examination of the mysterious Mount Roraima and its neighbourhood, in the interior of Guiana. In conclusion,

Mr. Markham called attention to the shortcomings of the Admiralty in the surveying department, expressing a hope that they might be induced to send out a properly equipped surveying-vessel

to the southern part of the east and west coasts of Africa, “which have not been sounded since the days of Capt. Owen, half a century ago.” ARTICLE PDF RIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS Reprints and

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