tion, so much proficiency in some of the sim- | tance of 100 miles from the sea it leaps over pler arts of life, and display so many of its tremendous precipices, and is beset with danproprieties and humanities, raises the charac- gerous rapids and terrible cascades. The ter of the black men to the level of the white, Niger in its lower course is open, but its upproving them to be capable of the same re- per course presents many obstructions and finement of feeling and manners. The cha- difficulties. The Senegal is only navigable racter of one native chief and of the princes for 250 miles from its mouth; and now the of his family elicited from Captain Speke the Nile, in addition to the well-known difficulties highest eulogy which man can bestow on of its lower stream, has been ascertained to He has characterised them as essen- have a series of rapids and falls in its highest tially gentlemen. But it would appear that course which must present insuperable obstathese chiefs were of a superior race, who wan- cles to its navigation. dered probably from Abyssinia and became the rulers over tribes which differ little from the ordinary inhabitants of Africa. man. Whether the remote regions to which attention is now directed can be brought within the range of mercantile enterprise, remains to be ascertained. We already hear of the formation of a wealthy and influential public company, which will receive the support of the Viceroy of Egypt, and of which the object will be to open the navigation and extend trade throughout the whole course of the Nile. It is proposed to establish a line of telegraphs and a chain of trading posts as far as Khartum, and to form a line of caravans for penetrating the regions to the south. The impression made on Captain Speke on his first visit to these regions, of their boundless fertility and capabilities, has been fully confirmed. The countrys everywhere in a high state of cultivation, and the scenery in many parts strikingly grand. The prevalent principle of government appears to be the despotism of a chief; but the people are described as good-natured, intelligent, honest, and easily ruled. Cannibalism was not found to exist in any of the districts, although the travellers were themselves suspected and accused of it. It was imputed to them that they ate voraciously the flesh of women. The difficulties of travel in these countries are very great; and the frequent wars between the different tribes must for some time make exploration and traffic a work of peril. The navigation of the Nile seems beset with difficulties, which it may require centuries of civilisation to overcome No direct access by water to the district of the Nyauza can be hoped for, at least by the great river which rushes over the Ripon Falls. it is remarkable that in scarcely any of the great African rivers is the navigation unobstructed. The Zambezi is not navigable in its upper course, and has some serious obstructions in its lower. The great Orange River, after a course of 1000 miles, enters the sea an insignificant stream. The Couanza is navigable but for a short distance, and that only for small vessels. The Congo possesses a wide and deep embouchure, but at the dis The farther researches in this most interesting portion of the globe will probably not be confined to the route just explored by the two energetic and successful travellers who have so much excited our sympathy and our interest. The great tributaries of the Nile now deserve attention. They may flow from regions quite as important and probably as interesting as those with which we have recently been made acquainted, although their exploration may not be fruitful of such exciting geographical results. It was suggested so far back as 1837 that the most appropriate mode of exploring the Nile and its tributaries would be by means of a small steamer, drawing only two feet of water, and manned by a small but select crew. An expedition, provisioned for a year, leaving Cairo in the month of July, might, with a little care, pass all the cataracts between that place and Khartum, and reach Gondokoro without difficulty.* For exploring the Nile much above Gondokoro, such an expedition would, we now learn, be unsuitable; but it might be eminently conducive to the prosecution of further geographical discoveries if it should take the direction either of the Sobat, the Giraffe, or the Bahr el Ghazal, and thus be not only the means of greatly enlarging our knowledge of the interior of Africa, but become the harbinger of civilisation to millions yet unknown and unheard-of. The introduction of steam on the upper waters of the White Nile would not be a novelty. The feat has been already accomplished by three ladies, who, with a spirit and courage which cannot be too highly commended, have not only pushed up the Nile in their little vessel as far as Gondokoro, but have even ventured a day's journey beyond it. They have entered the Sobat, and steamed for some distance up its stream, which they describe as not of great importance, except during the floods. They have gone upon an excursion up the Bahr el Ghazal, by which they hope to make important discoveries relating to streams by which that great mere' is fed. *Journal of the Royal Geographical Society for 1839.' All efforts to ascend the Nile to its source having failed, it is remarkable that no effort should have been made before the expedition of Burton and Speke to reach it from the east. It had several times been suggested that expeditions starting from Zanzibar would have a fairer prospect of reaching the land of mystery than if they proceeded from Egypt. Important discoveries had been made by the German missionaries stationed near the coast, and who took occasional excursions into the interior; and in 1848 Dr. Beke, an able geographer, projected an expedition into the interior from Zanzibar, being convinced that the head-streams of the Nile would certainly be found in the district now known to be drained by the Nyanza. A claim, therefore, has been made by this gentleman to be considered the theoretical discoverer of the sources of the Nile, in consequence of having pointed out (after Ptolemy and the Arabian map-maker) the quarter in which they were to be sought. This claim cannot in any degree detract from the merit of Captain Speke in having arrived by fair and independent reasoning at the convictions which prompted him to undertake his last expedition, and in having actually discovered the great reservoir from which the mighty Nile flows. It would be unjust, while applauding the great achievement of the now illustrious explorers of the source of the Nile, not to refer to the invaluable labours of the Society to which the world has for many years been chiefly indebted for the extension of geographical knowledge. To the Royal Geographical Society of Great Britain is due that increase in our knowledge of the surface of the globe, which has been one of the most marked characteristics of this century. The va riety and importance of the subjects brought forward for discussion in this Society, no less than the great ability which marks the Papers contributed to its Journal, and the number of its members, place it very high in deed among our scientific bodies. It is a remarkable coincidence that the eminent man who presides with so much ability over its councils, and contributes so greatly to the interest of its discussions, should also be the geologist who has revealed to us the ancient history of the earth, while in his untiring geographical labours he evinces that his interest is not by any means confined to the deep foundations of our planet, or to the mys terious changes which in remote ages its surface has undergone. African discovery has more especially occupied the attention of the Society, and the name of its founder* will be connected with the discovery of the mouth of the Niger; the name of its existing President-to whom is mainly due its resuscitation-will be associated with the discovery of the sources of the Nile. His steady aid, combined with the cordial approbation and support afforded by her Majesty's Government to the successive expeditions, has greatly contributed to the prosecution of African discovery in the South and in the East, and to the achievements of Livingstone and Speke. The noble river which issues from the Victoria Nyanza is, like Hercules in his cradle, a giant born; but its remote springs of life remain yet unvisited by civilised man. The modern world may still say with the Roman 'Nec licuit populis parvum te, Nile, videre.' Its origin may yet lie hidden among the wilds which have only just emerged from the gloom of unexplored distance; but tracked by the eager steps of the future explorer, it will reveal more and more of its mysteries; and he will at length slake his thirst in the sparkling rill which is the source of Heaven's blessings to the millions who breathe, and move, and have their habitation along the vast expanse of valley and plain from the long-mythical Mountains of the Moon to the old historic land of Egypt and the sea. The late Sir John Barrow. ART. I.-1. Lives of British Engineers. By This would describe man as a Road-making Samuel Smiles. 3 vols. 8vo. 3 vols. 8vo. London, 1862. 2. Proceedings of the Institute of Civil Engineers, 1842 to 1863. 3. Sir W. Armstrong's Address delivered at the Meeting of the British Association at Newcastle, 1863. AMONG the various definitions which have been proposed, in order to distinguish man from the lower orders of beings, few are more characteristic than that which describes man as a Tool-using animal. Whatever powers other animals exert, or whatever functions they perform, are due to the strength of their teeth, or claws, or to the adaptability of some member, which they inherited with their birth, and which is an essential part of their being. On the other hand, we nowhere find man so uncultivated, that he cannot use a club or spear, and we very rarely find him unable to twist a fibre into a thread, or unable to use a bow and arrow. The latter, in fact, is a tool of no mean complexity, and requires, on the part of the individual using it, longer practice and more skill than need be developed by the man who tends the most complicated machinery in our modern factories, or who guides the gigantic powers of our largest steam engines. The essential difference is that the tool of the savage is the product of his own hands, and its successful exercise depends on his own individual skill, whilst the factory of the civilised man is the result of the combination of thousands, who have aggregated their experience in inventing it, and united their energies to work it. There is still another definition which is as characteristic as that just quoted, though it has not yet found its way into books. L-11 VOL. CXIV. animal;-understanding by this, not the path which an animal wears with its feet as it goes from its lair to the feeding ground; but those organised means of communication, by land or sea, by which a man seeks to barter the special results of his own industry for those of other men; and which enable every country to interchange its products with those of every other climate and soil. These two definitions are worthy of far more attention than they have hitherto received, inasmuch as they practically are the foundation of the modern science of engineering. It may be that we, living in the midst of progress, and being as it were part of the great work, are not aware of the importance of the changes that are taking place through the instrumentality of this, the youngest of the professions; but it is not too much to say, that the invention of the steam-engine, and ̧ its application to the various arts and manufactures, are as important to mankind as the invention of the printing-press was some four centuries ago. What printing did for the intercommunication of ideas, and the development of intellectual power, steam is doing in increasing the material well-being of mankind: and in bringing together all the nations of the earth, so that none can now remain much longer strangers to the other--and all may unite for any purpose, good or, evil. It is no hyperbole to say that already, within the last hundred years, the engineers have doubled the mechanical power, and more than doubled the productive resources of mankind; and they have reduced the dimensions of the globe, measured by time, to less than one-fourth of what they were in 1763. India can now be reached in a month; 1; China and Australia, in six weeks; and if a line of steamers were established, via Panama, a man might go round the world with ease in three months. But these are only the beginnings; we all know that, in a very few years from this time, there will not be an important port on the face of the globe which may not be reached from London in the short space of one month, and very few with which there will not be telegraphic communication. When all this network is once fairly established, it is impossible that any nation can remain segregated from the rest; and when a thousand millions of human beings come to take an interest in each other's affairs, and can combine to influence one another or to effect any given object, the results must be such as have not yet been dreamt of in our philosophies. There were of course engineers in all ages of the world, but their efforts were sporadic, and the value of their works depended upon the cleverness of the individual more than upon the advanced state of the science; and it is only within the last one hundred years, that the professors of engineering have attained that organisation without which nothing great can be done. It is only within the same period, and only among the more civilised nations, that people have been prepared to spend the enormous sums of money which have been required to effect the progress that has already been made. Mecca, prevented the two great families of mankind from resolving themselves into a multitude of incoherent atoms. During the last three centuries the tendency has been to combine mankind into a certain number of larger empires; but to define these by strictly marked boundaries, and to prevent intercommunication by custom-house and police regulations. Steam and rail are now tending to sweep away these barriers, and to fuse all the families of the earth together. This is not the place in which to speculate with the sanguine whether war and international jealousies will cease through this better knowledge and greater familiarity of men with one another, or to attempt to prophesy with the desponding, the greater evils that may arise from this gathering together of the nations. Nothing but a frightful catastrophe, of which we have no suspicion, can now stop the progress of road-making or the development of manufacturing industry. But, accepting that progress and that development as facts, it is well to endeavour to trace how and why the impulse was given, in order that we may more clearly see the direction in which the movement is tending. The mechanical engineer naturally takes precedence of his road-making brother-in point of time at all events-inasmuch as it requires only one man to make or use a tool, and it requires many to make a road or build a ship; and man's progress in all material or useful arts is measured much more by his power of combination, than by his individual intellectual development. There are besides certain accidental aids placed at man's dispo There are still many village communities in not very remote parts of the globe, where the shepherd and husbandman share with the carpenter and blacksmith the produce of the soil, or the result of their skill or industry-sal, microcosms, where men live nearly as unprogressive as the Anthropoids, and little raised above them in intellectual development, living and labouring only to supply their immediate material wants, and dying only to be forgot ten. Among these the engineer has no place; but gradually the stagnant pools of intel lectual sleep are being drained, and mankind are being formed into larger masses. In former years this was effected by the rude but ready mode of conquest, or of pilgrimage, -Alexander's glorious raid did more to bring the East and West together, than had been effected by the trade of the Egyptians or Assyrians; and it paved the way for the more systematic conquests of the Romans, who nearly united all the known world into one great empire. When that broke down, as sooner or later all systems based on violence must, it was the Crusades that first awakened Europe from the torpor and isolation of the dark ages; and the pilgrimages to the shrine of St. Peter at Rome, or to the Caaba at which he availed himself of at a very early period. We can hardly go back to the time when the hunter and the shepherd had not enlisted the dog to assist him in watching his flocks or in capturing game; or even to the time when the patient ox had not lent his assistance to draw the plough and to thrash out the grain. It was only at a much later stage that the less domestic horse was broken in to work for man, though he became, until the invention of steam, the most useful and the most versatile of all the assistant powers which man had borrowed from nature. He not only did all the work that had formerly been performed by the ox, but carried his master in war or the chase, bearing him or his goods on long journeys by land, or dragging waggons or coaches when roads were made, and turning mills for almost every kind of manufacture. Horse-labour, however, is expensive, and horseflesh heir to many of the ills of humanity; so wind and water were early enlisted to assist it-how early we hardly know-on land at least. On water the wind was in very ancient times entrap ped to fill the sail and waft the frail bark of the savage across the lake, and afterwards even on the ocean, and it has since the invention of a keel and the increase in the size of ships done an amount of work in the carrying line far greater than could be done by all the horses in existence. On shore, however, its services have been far less readily available. The most obvious way of using it would evidently be to construct a machine like the paddle-wheel of a steamboat, and encasing one half of it, to allow the wind to act on the other half. This has been frequently tried, but the exposed surface is so small, and the resistance of the enclosed part so great, that practically a sufficient amount of power cannot be obtained without a great expenditure of means, or unless it is blowing a gale of wind. A far more practical mode is the ordinary screw-mill, which is one of the most ingenious inventions of modern times, though when it was invented, or by whom, is by no means clear. We pride ourselves some what on the application of the screw to the propulsion of ships, but the employment of the same instrument to turn a mill, was a far more difficult and less obvious problem, the one being the exact converse of the other. In the windmill the passing air acts on the blades of the screw, and its force is transmitted to the circular mill which it works. In the ship the mill turns the screw, and its action in a fluid at rest forces forward the body containing the machine. Nothing can well be more ingenious than this mode of applying the power of wind; but then calm days frequently occur when the work is most wanted; or gales supervene when it is dangerous to loose the sails, and then all connected with the mill must remain idle. Thus uncertainty is the real defect of wind-power, which no ingenuity can overcome, and which will consequently, in spite of its cheapness, always limit its usefulness. Notwithstanding this a great deal of corn is ground in many parts of the world by wind-power, and much water raised in Holland and other low countries by its agency; but it is too uncertain for the great combinations of manufacturing industry, and therefore will probably never be developed to a greater extent than at present; in fact, it may fall into disuse as other powers become cheaper and handier, in consequence of their more regular and consequently more economical application. If, however, there is no great scope for mechanical ingenuity, and no great power to be obtained from so impalpable and so uncertain an element as wind, water forms a far more stable and more tangible agent for assisting man in his labours. It is uncertain how far the Romans ever used water as a power. If they had mills, they were probably only wheels supported on two boats anchored in the current, such as are seen on the Rhine or Danube at the present day. To throw a dam across a stream, and conduct a regulated quantity of water to a fixed wheel in a house, required a mechanical organisation which the Romans had not apparently reached, and may also have been unsuited to the 'fiumaras' of Italy. Very early, however, in the Middle Ages corn-mills became common on the more constant streams of Northern Europe, and soon superseded hand-grinding as completely as the spinning-frame and the power-loom have done away with hand-spinning or weaving in this country. At the present day an immense quantity of hard work is done by water-wheels. Some of vast diameter have been erected where the fall of water is great, and others of great breadth where the stream is heavy and the fall small. Practically almost all our corn is still ground by water- ' power, and a great deal of forging and many mining operations are carried on with its assistance. The great inconvenience is that in most cases the manufacture must be taken to the power, as local circumstances generally prevent the power being conveyed to the spots most suitable for its application. The convenience of transport and the facility of subsistence generally limit the localities of large centres of manufacturing industry to" fertile plains, and in these water-power is seldom available to any great extent. Recently a new application of water-power has been effected by the inventive genius of Sir W. Armstrong. He first applied it at Newcastle, where the general level of the town is very much above that of the wharves of the harbour, and the waterworks in consequence provided a very tall column of water' at the lower levels. Of this he availed himself by applying the pressure so obtained to force a piston along a watertight cylinder, and with a simple multiplying gear the cranes on the quays were made, by the mere turning of a cock, to raise any weight their construction could support. By applying the waterpower alternately on both sides of the piston, and acting on a cranked axle as done in the steam-engine-a water-engine was next invented, capable of exerting any amount of power that could be obtained from the height of the column of water and the amount of supply. When a sufficient head of water is available, or where the work is intermittent, this is certainly one of the most successful applications of water-power yet invented." At Great Grimsby Dock and at Birkenhead pipes are laid under the pavement from a reservoir at the top of a tall tower, to every part of the dock premises. At the foot of |