colonisation by the knowledge they gave the world about this continent, about Tasmania, and about New Zealand; and the date of Dirk Hartogs' landing on the Australian coast, the 25th October, is therefore a day which fully deserves to be remembered by all the civilised population living in these parts under the Southern Cross.

(To be continued.)

Erratum. In the December issue, owing to a typographical error, the word Karakoram was mis-spelt in the title of Mr. Muir's article (p. 544), and throughout its text. It should be as given above.

PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SCOTTISH GEOGRAPHICAL

SOCIETY.

LECTURES IN JANUARY.

THE Rev. Dr. Kelman will lecture in Edinburgh on January 31, in Glasgow on February 1, in Dundee on January 30, and in Aberdeen on January 29. His subject will be "America in Arms," and his address will be illustrated by lantern slides.

The first of the series of special afternoon lectures was delivered in the Society's Council Room on December 13, by Lieutenant G. B. Mackie, Black Watch, the title of whose lecture was "At the Somme." In view of the large audience which assembled to hear Lieutenant Mackie, and the limited accommodation which can be provided in the Council Room, it has been decided that the remaining lectures of the series shall be held in the Hall of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, which has been kindly placed at the disposal of the Society for this purpose. The next lecture will be that by Mr. E. P. Stebbing on "Some Aspects of Russia in 1914," on January 17.

GEOGRAPHICAL NOTES.

EUROPE.

The Ethnology of Scotland. - Professor Arthur Keith publishes in Nature for October 4 a useful article summarising recent researches on the question of the racial origin of the inhabitants of Scotland, the article containing numerous references. Points of interest which emerge from the summary are that between three thousand and four thousand years ago-that is, during an early stage of the Bronze Age-the east of Scotland was invaded by short, round-headed people of the Alpine stock. Of this stock, very definite traces remain in Aberdeenshire, Fife, and the Lothians, and generally on the eastern coastal belt of Scotland, while its members seem never to have penetrated to the west in any numbers. Several modern East Coast cemeteries give a percentage as high as 25-30 of such skulls. Apparently about the same time that the round-headed Alpine invaders were entering Scotland at the east, another invasion was taking place at the west, where early connection with Ireland brought a long-headed group into south-western Scotland. These invaders were apparently of Mediterranean stock. At some very early stage, however-early Neolithic, or perhaps even earlier-Britain was inhabited by members of the long-headed Nordic stock, and since the close of the Bronze period all invaders and immigrants have been invariably of this race, which forms the bulk of the population. Recent investigations by Dr. Matthew Young indicate that to a marked extent the English and the Scots of the west have been derived from a similar mixture of identical human stocks.

Malaria in England. - A curious minor effect of the war is the possible recrudescence of indigenous malaria in England, to which attention is called in a circular issued by the Local Government Board. It is well known that anopheline mosquitoes are found in various parts of England. Numbers of men who have contracted mals ia during the course of the fighting on the eastern fronts have returned home, and as their blood contains the malarial parasite, and the carriers exist in this country, these men may serve as foci of infection for the civilian population. Some cases of indigenous malaria have been already recorded in England, which probably originated in this way, and the Board is making inquiries as to the local prevalence of the carrier mosquitoes, and taking other precautions in regard to the disease.

AFRICA.

Types of Rural Dwelling in Algeria. - MM. Augustin Bernard and Edmond Doutté contribute to the Annales de Géographie for May 15 an article, accompanied by a coloured map, on the distribution of the various types of rural habitation among the indigenous population of Algeria, which contains some suggestive points. A first classification is, of course, into movable dwellings, that is tents, and fixed habitations, including all the forms of huts and houses. The second category is, however, capable of a considerable amount of subdivision. In Northern Algeria, as might have been expected, the area in which the tent is the dominant form of habitation is far greater than that in which fixed dwellings occur. In a total area of 20,774,000 hectares (1 hectare = nearly 2 acres), tents are characteristic of an area of 13,000,000 hectares, while gourbis, or rough huts, the next most widely distributed form of dwelling, only cover 4,143,000 hectares. But when we come to consider the number of persons occupying the two, the contrast is marked. The number of persons living in tents is estimated as 1,200,000, as against 1,650,000 living in gourbis. This, of course, is due to the fact that the tent is the natural habitation of a migrant pastoral people, which must have large spaces over which to roam. Again, naturally enough, the tent is found throughout the desert and steppe areas, where, owing to want of water, agriculture and settled life are not possible. In Algeria tents do not occur where the rainfall exceeds 20 inches per annum, and the slight precipitation in the province of Oran enables the pastoral nomads there to push their way to the seaboard. Elsewhere the tent occurs chiefly in the interior.

Just as the tent is the natural dwelling of the pastoral nomad, so the hut or gourbis is the typical habitation of the cultivator of cereals, and thus, while the tent-dwellers occupy the desert areas, so the hutdwellers tend to occupy the Tell. It is noteworthy that, in contrast to the purely sedentary agriculturist of Europe, the Algerian farmer is only partially sedentary, for he cannot continue to maintain the fertility of his fields by the methods employed. His characteristic rude dwelling indicates the provisional nature of his occupation of his lands. But, in the mountain areas, where a measure of protection can be obtained against the roving nomads of the plains, another type of dwelling, associated with another mode of life, is found. This is the flat-topped house, always associated with fruit cultivation. The fruitgrower must necessarily be purely sedentary, his cultivated plants being of slow growth and demanding continuous care. Again, since fruit trees occupy relatively a small area, and since protection is necessary, the flat-topped houses tend to be clustered in large villages or small towns, while tents and huts alike form only small groupings. In very limited areas in Algeria houses with tiled roofs occur. These represent an improvement on the flat-topped house, and are found especially in Great Kabylia, where, owing to the density of the population, they lodge a number of persons out of proportion to the size of the area of which this type of habitation is characteristic. This type is increasing throughout Algeria generally. Finally, a steadily increasing number of natives now live in houses of the European type. The reason for this is twofold. In part it represents a rise in the standard of living, due to increased prosperity, a deliberate choice of a type of dwelling offering more comfort than any of the native types. But in part it represents the conversion-itself a necessary result of the progress of colonisation -of a part of the original nomads into wage-earning labourers. The spread of the European type of house, in other words, means the progressive break up of the pastoral state and the gradual formation of an individualistic one.

The Ancient Speech of the Canary Islanders. - Lord Abercromby contributed to the first volume of the Harvard African Studies (1917) a paper on the Ancient Speech of the Canary Islands, and a copy of this paper has been sent to us. The author points out in the first place that when the natives of the archipelago became known to western Europe in the fourteenth century they were still living in the Stone Age. They had no knowledge of boats or canoes, and there was no intercommunication between the islands, each of which developed in its own way. The study of the speech of the islanders is therefore of much interest, for it is natural to suppose that the archipelago was peopled from the mainland opposite; and since the colonisation was presumably very early, perhaps about 2000 B.C., the language should throw light upon that of the western Libyans, from which the living Berbers are presumed to have been derived. Unfortunately the remnants of the language are very scanty, including only a few hundred words and some sentences, and even these are obscured by the fact that they were taken down by Spaniards, apparently in an imperfect fashion, and modified by the errors of later transcribers. The known words and sentences are subjected in the paper to a detailed examination, and the conclusion is arrived at that a certain number of words of undoubted relationship with Berber were of relatively late introduction, being due either to intercourse between the mainland and the islands before the arrival of the Spanish and French conquerors, or to the introduction of Berber captives after the conquest. As a whole, however, the ancient form of speech may be presumed to have been a lineal descendant of protoLibyan.

GENERAL.

Appearance of Grass in Ascension Island. According to a note in the Kew Bulletin this barren, desolate island has suddenly been clothed with green, owing to the appearance of a grass, which is forming luxuriant pastures. The grass has not hitherto been described from the island, but is a native of tropical Africa. It is supposed that the seeds have been brought either by birds or by the wind, and have been able to germinate owing to some heavy showers. The plant is an annual, and has appeared on the lower slopes, usually described as rainless; its appearance followed the occurrence of some heavy showers of rain.

Aeronautical Maps. - An indication of the importance which the aeroplane is expected to attain after the war as a means of communication is seen in an article on this subject contributed by Mr. Henry Woodhouse to the November issue of The Geographical Review. The author recognises four types of aeronautical maps. The first is the ordinary topographical map, which can be used for aviation if it is on a suitable scale-say, three or four miles to the inch. The French Army map is already used for this purpose. An improvement upon this is the special map, based upon the preceding, but stressing points of importance to the aviator, and including symbols for aerodromes, landing-places, stations where gas can be obtained for dirigibles, and so forth. Such maps also show with special distinctness objects like prominent churches or other buildings, monuments, and other kinds of landmarks. Where. it is intended to establish a permanent aerial service along a given route, another type of map is used, consisting only of a strip of territory along the line of travel. This kind of map originated in Italy, and so far has only been used on any scale there. Maps of similar type are, however, being made in America, and a scheme is now under way for the construction of an air-line or great circle route-map from New York to San Francisco. Finally, there is the photographic map, so extensively used in military work. It is possible that in future printed route-maps and the photographic map may be combined, the photograph being added to the side of the other map, in order to facilitate identification of the terrain.

In addition to the discussion of these different types of maps, which are illustrated by reproductions, the article discusses a considerable number of points connected with aerial transportation, and is one of much interest.

ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY,

Future Economic Developments in France. In the second part of the new French journal, Colonies et Marine, a copy of which has reached us recently, there appears an article on the French Mercantile Marine, by M. Gratien Candace. The article is devoted in part to an exposition of the present position of the merchant fleet, and in part to general economic schemes for the post-bellum period. In the first section a number of interesting details are given as to the merchant fleets of the great nations of the world, including a summary account of the numbers of German merchant ships which were in home ports, on the high seas, in ports expected to become belligerent, and in those expected to remain neutral in August 1914. The calculation is made that of a gross tonnage of 4,500,000 at the outbreak of hostilities, only some 1,000,000 tons remained in German, Austrian, or Turkish ports. Rather more than 1,000,000 tons are lying in ports which are still neutral, suggesting a loss of more than half the original gross tonnage.

The author also considers the causes which have made the merchant fleet of France relatively unimportant, so that it stands fifth on the list, being surpassed by those of Great Britain, the United States, Germany, and Norway. He makes a number of suggestions as to ways in which shipbuilding can be promoted in post-bellum France. Among these he emphasises improvements in the rail and canal system of the interior, in the navigable rivers, and especially in the great ports. Extensive works must, he thinks, be undertaken at Marseilles, Havre, Dunkerque, Nantes, and Bordeaux.

The World's Production of Cocoa. - An article in the Times Trade Supplement for October points out that about 40 per cent. of the world's production of cocoa is grown in the British Empire, the Gold Coast being the largest producer. In 1915 the total production may be reckoned at 290,000 tons, and of this the Gold Coast yielded about 26 per cent., Brazil following with about 16 per cent., then, in order of importance, Ecuador (11 per cent.), San Thomé (10 per cent.), Trinidad (over 8 per cent.). Other cocoa-producing countries in the British Empire are Nigeria, Grenada, Jamaica, Ceylon, St. Lucia, and Dominica. The United States are the largest consumers, followed by the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, France, and Switzerland. An interesting point about Gold Coast cocoa is that it is grown exclusively by native farmers, to whom advice and assistance are given by the officials of the Department of Agriculture. In Uganda over 4000 acres have been planted with cocoa, and should come into bearing during the