reopening a shorter as well as a competing route. The possibility of
an electric telegraph from England to America is again talked about,
and will doubtless be talked about until it is accomplished, in the
same way that the French, by dint of trying, seem determined to
succeed at last in aerial navigation, the latest exploit of that kind
having been the turning round of a cylindrical balloon in the air at
Paris by means of a small steam-engine, carried up by the apparatus.
Meanwhile, Denmark is going to link her states together by wires,
which will stretch from Copenhagen to Elsinore and Hamburg, and
include Schleswig, Zealand, and Holstein. Loke would stand no chance
now in the old Scandinavian land against the thought-flasher. The
Swedish exploring expedition is making satisfactory progress in the
southern hemisphere, and Captain von Krusenstern is fitting out a
vessel at his own cost to explore the coast of Siberia--an enterprise
which the Russians have often attempted with but partial success. The
Americans, too, are thinking of another expedition, to make such
observations and discoveries as may be useful or possible round Java,
in the China Sea, as it is called, the Kurile Islands, and Behring
Strait. Their state of California is still resorted to by the Chinese,
who now number 50,000 in their new country, and conduct themselves as
orderly and industrious citizens. There is some talk of introducing
tea-culture, for the sake of giving them employment, as their presence
at the diggings is scarcely tolerated. We are soon to know more than
at present of the geography and people of Borneo, for Madame Ida
Pfeiffer has travelled further into that country than any other
European, and is preparing a narrative of her adventures. Nearer home,
Lieutenant Van de Velde, of the Dutch navy, has been exploring the
Holy Land, in a very complete manner, and in some parts heretofore
unvisited; and when our Geographical Society meets, we shall doubtless
be informed of the chief results of his twelvemonth's toilsome and at
times dangerous travel. If Captain Allen's scheme, as laid before the
British Association, could be carried out, we should be able to
approach the region by another sea as well as the Mediterranean; for
he proposes to cut a channel from the head of the Gulf of Akabah to
the Valley of the Dead Sea, and allow the water to pour through until
the vast basin be filled to the depth of some hundreds of feet, and of
course