from (and it is always safer and wiser to hold in such matters by the opinion of those conversant with the country, and Captain Speke agrees with Dr. Livingstone, the one in attributing the overflow of the Nile to the discharge of an interior plateau, and the other advocating the same thing with regard to the Zambesi), it is certain that the ascertained elevation of Lake Nyanza is sufficient, even with the existence of falls at Garbo, to account for the course of the stream down to Khartum, where the Nile is believed to flow at a height of less than fifteen hundred feet above the sea; and if the supersaturation and discharge of the said interior watery plateau takes place, as it may justly be supposed to do, towards the close of the rainy season, the interval of time between the close of that season at Nyanza in May, and the periodical rise of the Nile at Cairo on June 18, will be accounted for. Supposing the overflow to commence, for example, on the 1st of May, it would require a speed equal to two miles and a half per hour to reach Cairo by the 18th of June, estimating the distance from the outlet of Lake Nyanza to that city at some two thousand six hundred miles, which, with the river windings, is rather under the mark than above it. But, granting the distance to be greater, and the overflow to take place later, it would require a current of from three to four miles an hour to take the first wave of the flood to Cairo by the 18th of June; and this will, probably, be found to be somewhere about the real state of the case.

We have always, in discussing the many questions connected with the opening of the interoceanic canal between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, taken as favourable a view of the subject as it has been in our power to do without sacrificing the greatest of all moral principles-truth. We have done so for several reasons. Firstly, because any great undertaking of the kind must, if feasible, be of ultimate advantage to the world at large; secondly, because, although we should prefer seeing the line of the Euphrates opened for reasons of general civilisation as well as of national policy, still that was no reason why we should be hostile to the opening of another line; and, lastly, we were most anxious that it should not be said that British publicists were opposed to a French project simply because it was French, or that it should for a moment be supposed that we could be swayed in such matters by petty international jealousies. The reports of Commander Pim and of Captain Spratt, the distinguished surveyor of the Mediterranean, have, however, come to increase, to a very serious degree, the previous doubts and difficulties which environed this great undertaking. If they have not altogether disposed of its feasibility, they have, at all events, made it clear that no amount of remunerative capital would be likely to carry the scheme to fruition. The results of Captain Spratt's laborious and scientific investigations of the effect of the prevailing wave influence on the deposits discharged at the mouth of the greatest of the African rivers, have been to show that the wave stroke from the west, influenced by the prevailing north-westerly winds, has for ages been impeding the transport of any Nile deposits either to the west or into the depths of the Mediterranean on the north, but has constantly driven them to the east.

Through this unvarying natural process, Alexandria, which is on the west of the Nile mouth, has been kept free from silt, whilst the alluvia of the river have successively choked up and ruined the harbours of

Rosetta and Damietta within the historic era, and have formed a broader zone in the bay of Pelusium than on any other part of the coast. Captain Spratt also shows that the prevailing north-westerly wind has produced precisely the same effect upon those downs and moving sands on the coast lands, which, destroying habitations and fertile fields, fill up depressions; all these downs being derived from those sands which have originally been carried out by the Nile from the interior of Africa, then thrown up on the shore, and afterwards transported eastwards by the prevailing winds.

Captain Spratt contends from this in the spirit of a fair inductive reasoner, that the proposal of M. Lesseps to form a large ship canal in the low countries between Suez and the bay of Pelusium is wholly unwarranted: 1st. Because that bay of the Mediterranean into which the canal is to open, is so continuously and regularly silting up, that no amount of dredging could contend against a great local law of nature, and hence, that no permanent port could be formed there. 2ndly. That the blown sands drifted from the west would be constantly filling up the canal. 3rdly. That the very incoherent condition of the ground in which the canal has to be cut (being nothing more than the Nilotic sands accumulated in former days) would not sustain a steady body of water, and that all attempts to clear out its unceasing infillings of matter would be impracticable.

We have before alluded to the important information derived from the Palliser expedition in North America, the discovery of the "Vermilion Pass" through the Rocky Mountains, and the determination of the best line of intercourse between the Atlantic and Pacific. How pregnant with results to the future history of the New World is such a discovery! It is most probable that detailed accounts of Captain Palliser's expedition will be shortly published, as may also be expected to be the case with regard to Captains Burton and Speke's discoveries, as well as of others noticed in this brief summary, and in such a case we shall hope to have the opportunity of returning to the details of such eventful episodes of travel.

Ever since Dr. Rae learnt from the Esquimaux (20th of April, 1854) that about forty white men had been seen travelling in company southward over the ice of King William's Land, dragging a boat and sledges with them; that these men were, with the exception of one officer, thin and weary; that at a later date, the same season, the corpses of some thirty persons and some graves were discovered on the continent, and five dead bodies on an island near it, about a long day's journey to the north-west of the mouth of Back's Great Fish River; and lastly, when Dr. Rae brought home with him relics purchased from the natives, among which were Sir John Franklin's and Captain Crozier's plate, geographers could place their fingers on the map at or near the spot where the catastrophe which had made two gallant crews wanderers over the icy deserts of the north had occurred, and they could follow the tracks of their countrymen as they fell, almost one by one, on their way to the Great Fish River. One party having reached the continent of America, there were some faint hopes that some might yet live to tell the sad story. Upon this point Captain M'Clintock's researches throw no light, but still these hopes, slight at first, have now lost all consistency.

Captain Collinson since found a piece of wood-work, which must have belonged to the Erebus or the Terror, at another point about the same distance from the north shore of King William's Land as the Great Fish River, and Mr. Anderson visited, in July, 1858, the very spot on Montreal Island where the boat of the survivors had been abandoned. The traces of the fugitives, strange to say, extended up the stream to the first rapids; so it seems as if some at least of the survivors ascended some distance up the river before they perished. It was upon all these grounds put together, that feeling, as Captain Sherard Osborn plainly put it in his narrative of the "Discovery of the North-West Passage" (p. 329) that "the Erebus and Terror are somewhere within the limits of the unsearched area about King William's Land;" that memorials were sent in to her Majesty's government by Lady Franklin, and signed by the most eminent geographers and men of science of the day, urging the sending out of an expedition to satisfy the honour of our country, and to clear up a mystery which has excited the sympathy of the civilised world. The public mind was, however, at that time too deeply engaged in the sufferings of the British army upon the heights of Sebastopol, and it was left to the heroic and devoted relict of Sir John Franklin to equip the Fox, and send out the gallant M'Clintock to determine the truth. Government would not even send out a small vessel to co-operate by way of Behring's Straits.

Stern were the trials, and stubborn the difficulties which the commander of the Fox had to overcome ere he could reach the ominous region of King William's Land. The little vessel was drifted helpless, during the winter of 1858, 1194 geographical miles. Reaching Peel Strait the next summer, after visiting Pond's Inlet and Beechey Island, the channel was found to be covered with unbroken ice, and the Fox was forced to retrace her steps and gain Bellot's Strait by Prince Regent's Inlet. Reaching the western outlet of this strait, a band of impenetrable fixed ice was found to intervene between the ship and the open water, and further research was left for sledge parties during the next spring. It was on these excursions that natives were met with near Cape Victoria, who stated that several years ago a ship was crushed by the ice off the north shore of King William's Island, that all her people landed safely, and went away to the Great Fish River, where they died. It was afterwards ascertained that a second ship had been seen off King William's Island, and that she drifted ashore in the fall of the same year. Captain M'Clintock thinks that if this wreck still remains visible, it is probable she lies upon some of the off-lying islets to the southward between Capes Felix and Crozier. It is to be regretted that it was not in his power to determine this point satisfactorily.

Further explorations and communication with the natives brought a number of curious and interesting facts to light. It was stated that many of the white men dropped by the way as they retreated to the Great Fish River; ten miles east of Cape Herschel a bleached skeleton was found, supposed to be the remains of a steward or officer's servant. The most important discovery was, however, effected at Point Victory, where a large cairn was discovered by Lieutenant Hobson, on the 6th of May.

Lying amongst some loose stones which had fallen from the top of

this cairn was found a small tin case, containing a record, the substance of which was as follows: This cairn was built by the Franklin Expedi tion upon the assumed site of James Ross's pillar, which had not been found. The Erebus and Terror spent their first winter at Beechey Island, after having ascended Wellington Channel to lat. 77 deg. N., and returned by the west side of Cornwallis Island. On September 12th, 1846, they were beset in lat. 70.05 deg. N. and long. 98.23 W. Sir J. Franklin died on the 11th of June, 1847. On the 22nd April, 1848, the ships were abandoned five leagues to the N.N.W. of Point Victory, and the survivors, a hundred and five in number, landed here under the command of Captain Crozier. This paper was dated 25th of April, 1848, and upon the following day they intended to start for the Great Fish River. The total loss by deaths in the expedition up to this date was nine officers and fifteen men. A vast quantity of clothing and stores of all sorts lay strewed about, as if here every article was thrown away which could possibly be dispensed with: pickaxes, shovels, boats, cooking utensils, ironwork, rope, blocks, canvas, a dip circle, a sextant engraved "Frederic Hornby, R.N.," a small medicine-chest, oars, &c.

A few miles southward, across Back Bay, a second record was found, having been deposited by Lieutenant Gore M. Des Voeux, in May, 1847. It afforded no additional information.

Still more touching, if not equal in importance to the above, was the next discovery made, of a boat, within which were found two human skeletons and a large quantity of clothing. One of these skeletons lay in the after part of the boat, under a pile of clothing; the other, which was much more disturbed, probably by animals, was found in the bow. Two double-barrelled guns stood upright against the boat's side, precisely as they had been placed eleven years before. How eloquently does such a fact speak of the dreary unbroken solitude of some portions of these icy regions? It was believed that this boat had been intended for the ascent of the Fish River, but was abandoned upon an attempt made to return to the ships, probably for further supplies. A great many other relics were found. It appeared, indeed, that the shore of King William's Island had not been visited by the Esquimaux, between its north and west extremes, Capes Felix and Crozier, since the abandonment of the Erebus and Terror, as the cairns and articles lying strewed about, which would have been of priceless value to them, were left untouched. "His feet are beautiful on the mountains who bringeth good tidings," declares the inspired writer, and if the intelligence brought home by Captain M'Clintock can only be received with melancholy satisfaction, still there is this sad consolation, that it is conclusive as to the fate of Sir John Franklin, and almost as much so as to that of the two ships, and of their gallant but unfortunate crews. It goes far towards dispelling what has been hitherto a dark and painful mystery, and leads us to hope that there will be no further sacrifice of valuable lives in those remote and remorseless regions. On this account, also, we hail the return of the Fox in safety with even more unalloyed gladness than we can be expected to receive the sad but not unforeseen tidings which she brings with her.

IT was a brilliant day in August, far too brilliant, taken in conjunction with the heat, and the twelve o'clock train was preparing to leave Katterley. The platform was all in a bustle-a bustle that was not frequently experienced at that quiet little station-but since the previous evening, when a fearful accident had occurred not far off, Katterley had been on its legs. The train, the one about to proceed, had come in, and only three minutes being allowed for its stay, people who were going by it looked alive: a few had got out, a great many were getting in, for idlers had been flocking to the scene of the accident all the night and morning, and would be flocking, until their curiosity was sated.

A porter held open the door of a first-class carriage, as a party hastened on to the platform; two gentlemen, three ladies, and a maid-servant. The porter evidently knew them well, and touched his cap. “Johnson,” said one of the gentlemen to him, "let us have it to ourselves if you can: don't crowd us up.

"Very well, sir," replied the man; "I dare say I shan't want to put anybody else in.”

"But now whereabouts is this carriage?" called out one of the ladies, in a hasty and rather shrieking voice, as she looked to the right and left, "because, if it's not just in the middle, I won't get in. I'll never put myself towards either end of a train again as long as I live."

"Step in, step in, Mary Anne," cried the same gentleman who had previously spoken, "you are all right."

"Make haste, miss," added the porter.

"The time's up."

"Of course it's up," repeated the young lady, "and I wonder it wasn't up before we reached it. This comes of putting off things till the last moment. I told you all the clocks were slow, and we should be late. If there's one thing I hate more than another, it's the being obliged to rush up and catch a train at the last moment! No time to choose your carriage; no time to see or do anything; they may put you in the guard's van if they please, and you never know it till you are off. I dare say we have come without our tickets now: do you know, Oliver ?"

In reply, Oliver Jupp held up the six bits of cardboard for his sister's satisfaction, and the party settled themselves in their seats. "Why, Elizabeth, I declare I never saw you!" exclaimed Mary Anne Jupp to the maid-servant.

"Didn't you, miss. I walked right behind you from our house."

"I thought it better to bring Elizabeth," interposed her mistress, Mrs. Lake, who was looking that morning unusually young and lovely. "Mrs. Chester's servants will be glad of help, with so many of us to wait upon." "Mrs. Chester is the best manager in a house that I ever met with," exclaimed Margaret Jupp. "Fancy, only two servants, and one of those you may almost call a nurse, for the children require plenty of attending to, and yet things seem to go on smoothly. I can't think how she con

trives it."