Tsad. This is a fact of no little importance, as such a height allows no fall for any of its rivers, if connected, according to some writers, with the Nile, or the Kowara, or Niger.

Respecting the botanical features of the country, Dr. Vogel was surprised to find, among other plants, the Ficus elastica, the tree that furnishes the caoutchouc, inasmuch as it was not noticed by any previous traveller. It grows in considerable quantities in Bornu; but the inhabitants are not acquainted with the nature and use of the product it bears.

It is known that M. Andersson, a young Swedish naturalist and traveller, is making explorations in Central Africa. Letters just received from him, via the Cape of Good Hope, announce that he had succeeded in reaching the great Lake of Nigami. He is the first European who has penetrated so far from the western coast.

Special reports by Sir Charles Lyell have appeared on the Geological and Topographical and Hydrographical departments of the New York Exhibition, which are highly valuable and interesting for the summary they present of what the United States contain and are capable of in those important subjects. The facts adduced in matters geological, owing to the vast extent of country, are truly amazing, and the sources inexhaustible.

After passing the whole subject in review, Sir Charles concludes by stating that "the natural distribution of these sources of wealth and power, combined with the physical features of the entire country, leave nothing to be desired with respect to the materials and incentives for its physical progress and development." "If in a pecuniary sense," says the editor of Chambers's Journal," the American Exhibition was a failure, the loss has been largely compensated by the interesting reports it has called into existence."

The following are among the prizes offered by the French Academy during the past year :

For the year 1856.—A vigorous and methodical investigation into the metamorphoses and reproduction of the Infusoria, properly so called, (the Polygastrica of Ehrenberg.)

2d. For 1855.—An exposition of the laws governing the distribution of fossils in the different sedimentary strata in their order of superposition; and a discussion of the question of their appearance or disappearance, successive or simultaneous.

-A research into the nature of the relations existing between the present and past states of the organic kingdom.

Another for 1856.—The determination through the study of the development of the embryo in two species, one taken from the class

of vertebrata, and the other either from the Mollucca or Articulata, of the proper foundation for comparative embryology.

The prizes for either of the above is a gold medal of 3,000 francs.

A medal of gold, of the value of 800 francs, is decreed each to the work, printed or in manuscript, which appears to have contributed most to the progress of Experimental Physiology. A gold medal of the value of 2,500 francs is offered, for 1856, for the best work on the mode of fecundation of eggs, and the structure of the organs of generation, in the principal natural groups of the class of Polyps, or that of Acalephs.

The sum of £4,000 has recently been bequeathed to the French Institute, to be given to the discoverer of a cure for the Asiatic cholera, the annual interest of the sum to be awarded to those who may do most to relieve the terrible malady.

The Royal Scottish Society of Arts offers prizes, varying from £10 to £30, for "any thing new in the art of clock or watch making," for inventions or new appliances in the useful arts generally, and for 66 means by which the natural productions of the country may be made more available." And the Scientific Society of Leipsic announces prizes for papers on commerce, astronomy, and political economy, to be written in French, German or Latin. The Royal Academy of Berlin offers two hundred ducats to whomsoever shall furnish a satisfactory reply to certain inquiries touching the well being of a State. It wishes to know, among others, whether Adam Smith's leading doctrine work makes wealth- can be identified with the prosperity of a people. The Royal Institution of Great Britain makes known that the Actonian prize of £105 will be ready in 1858 for the author of the best essay on the "Wisdom and Beneficence of the Almighty, as manifested by the Influence of Solar Radiation." So much knowledge has been gained of this subject within the past few years that materials are abundant, and we ought to have an essay of more than ordinary interest.

The "Société Médico-Pratique de Paris" offers a prize, in the form of a gold medal worth three hundred francs, for the best dissertation on the mode of action of the principal purgatives used in medicine, with the special indications for their use.

The curious effects attributed to the extract and various other preparations of the Canabus Indicus, as used in Egypt, has induced the above Society to offer a prize of one thousand francs for the best analysis of the cannabis.

The Society of Arts, London, offers a premium of fifty guineas to any person who will furnish them with modes of operation, models, and specifications of machinery by which the New Zealand flax,

Phormium Tenax, may be dressed at a cost not exceeding £5 per ton, (this price to prepare the flax as a raw material,) reckoning the wages of an ordinary laborer at 4s. per diem, and of artisans at 6s. to 6s. 6d. The machine to be of two kinds one analogous to the old spinning-wheel, that may be used in every cottage or shepherd's hut, and the other suitable for more extensive operations.

The New York Academy of Medicine, through the liberality of a few of its members, offers a prize of $100 for the best essay on "The Nature and Treatment of Cholera Infantum," to be presented during the ensuing year. The trial for the prize is open to the profession throughout the country.

The National Education Society, at its session at Pittsburg last August, offered a reward of $500 for the best philosophical work on education. That Society adjourned to Washington city, August 8, 1854.

The French Government has decided that a periodical, containing reports and papers of scientific and literary societies, accounts of missions, &c., shall henceforth be published under the title of Bulletin des Sociétés Savants.

At the last meeting of the Royal Geographical Society the Found er's medal was presented to Admiral Smyth, for his able and all but exhaustive work on the Mediterranean Sea. A medal was also presented to Capt. McClure for his discoveries in the Polar Regions.

The office of superintendent of the French National Observatory has been given to M. Leverrier.

A petition, drawn up by M. Vattemare, has been addressed to the American Senate. Its purpose is to induce that body to examine the French metrical decimal system for weights and measures, and adopt it, or a similar one, in the United States. In France the monetary system is decimal, and has been since the revolution of '93; the thermometer is decimal, since Napoleon established the centigrade; and measures of length, surface, solidity, capacity and weight, have been obligatory decimal since 1840.

At the recent Congress of the learned societies of France, the subject of the acclimatization of useful plants and animals received considerable attention. It was stated that, from what has already been done and what is now doing, there is every reason to expect that several sorts of vegetables, fruits, plants, birds, fish, and animals heretofore confined to Asiatic or American countries, will before long become completely naturalized in France, and will in time form an important part of the people's food, or will add to the conveniences or pleasures of life.

A new tuber, the Chinese Yam, has been introduced in Paris, from

China, which experimentists say possesses all the requirements of the potato, and may take the place of that plant as a culinary vegetable. Specimens have also been introduced in England, where they thrive well. It has been domesticated and is perfectly hardy in Paris. Its root is bulky, rich in nutritive matter, eatable when raw, easily cooked either by boiling or roasting, and then having no other taste than that of flour.

An attempt is about to be made to introduce the Angora goat into Cape Colony, South Africa, an enterprise which promises great success. A new species of silkworm, from Assam, Southern Asia, has been introduced within the past year into Malta and some parts of Italy. It feeds on the leaves of the castor oil plant.

During the past year the Earl of Clarendon, Foreign Secretary, has not only introduced into Great Britain numerous living plants of the "Argan" tree of Southern Morocco, (celebrated for yielding fodder for cattle in the husks of the fruit, oil similar to olive-oil in the nuts, and a beautiful wood in its trunk,) but he has also imported, in the finest state for germination, large quantities of seed, which have been freely distributed throughout the country and in the Colonies.

At the last Annual State Fair of New York, three Cashmere goats were exhibited by Dr. Davis, of South Carolina. It is the animal of which the Cashmere shawls are made, the value of which does not depend, as many suppose, upon their rarity, but upon the fact that the material surpasses every other like article in its capacity for wear. The Cashmere goat was introduced into South Carolina several years ago, by Dr. Davis, from the interior of Asia Minor, and the breed has since been carried into the adjoining States of North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, and Florida, and mixed with the native goat. The hair of the animal, which is pure white, is most beautiful. It somewhat resembles in appearance the finest portion of the fleece of the Chinese sheep, a few of which are on exhibition. It is curly, soft in texture, and brilliant in appearance. The animal is extremely delicate in shape, though hardy. A sock made from the hair was shown with the goats. We learn that the meat is white and delicate, and is preferred in the parts of South Carolina where they are reared to mutton. A herd will protect itself against dogs, which constitutes a great advantage over sheep in localities where dogs are troublesome. Throughout South Carolina the ordinary animal has risen largely in price from the facility with which the breed is improved by this cross.

The Garden of Plants, at Paris, has also recently received for the purpose of acclimation and propagation in France a number of Yaks from China—an animal which Buffon says "is more precious than all

the gold of the new world." In Thibet and China this animal serves as a horse, an ass, a cow, and a sheep; it bears heavy burdens, draws large loads, supplies milk, has flesh which is excellent, and hair which can be wrought into warm cloths. To naturalize them, therefore, in Europe would be an immense service to mankind; and as they bear cold bravely, the French naturalists have every hope that they will be able to do so. Some Chinese have been brought over to attend the Yaks, and they will teach the French the way of treating them and of curing them in sickness. The Yaks are of lowish stature, are singularly shaggy, and have tails more bushy than those of horses.

It is to be hoped that the people of the United States will take their share in endeavoring to accustom Asiatic and African animals to our climates. It is not very creditable to our boasted nineteenth century, that in this respect it is far behind the old Romans. Out of the many thousand species of which the animal creation consists, only between forty and fifty are, in fact, domesticated.

Some attempts to introduce the new system of breeding fish have been successfully made in the United States. Mr. R. L. Pell, of New York, in a recent communication to the Farmers' Club of the American Institute, stated that he had taken the spawn from the female shad and impregnated it with the male shad, and that the eggs produced shad in great numbers. He has numerous fish ponds, in which there are forty-five varieties of foreign and native fish, thousands of which come at the ringing of a bell to be fed out of his hand. Sturgeons nine feet long may be seen in his ponds.

Mr. Pell has made arrangements to import the Ova of the Tench, Barbel and Carp from Europe, for his ponds, and likewise the spawn of the famous Turbot and Sole.

At the State Agricultural Fair of Ohio, specimens of trout propagated artificially were exhibited.

The electrical loom, invented by Bonneli, as a substitute for the Jacquard, excites much attention in Europe. Some reject it out and out; others consider it as an important invention. An improvement in the Jacquard loom has also been made by a Mr. Acklin. He has succeeded in substituting paper for the pasteboard patterns, which produces an enormous economy in the use of the Jacquard loom.

When the Pilgrims came to New England, they may be said to have brought over with them their Universities, so early did they institute the Universities of Cambridge and New Haven. The same blood warms in the veins of the Oregonians. Their territory is yet but a babe-so small that every additional company's arrival, by sea or over the plains, is chronicled as matter of important bearing on its growth. Still it is old enough to lay the foundations of a school for