next year or so, he will doubtless observe
important changes in the contours of Victoria Nyanza; for all the maps,
from Speke to those of 1902, will be placed on the shelf to serve only
as the historical record of the good, honest work which a number of
explorers have done. Commander Whitehouse has recently spent thirteen
months surveying with infinite pains these coasts and islands. "I seem
to see," writes Stanley of this important service, "the sailor, with his
small crew and his little steel boat, wandering from point to point,
crossing and recrossing, going from some island to some headland, taking
his bearings from that headland back again to the island, and to some
point far away."

Commander Whitehouse has made a new delineation of the entire 2,200
miles of coasts, and the results of his survey will be used in making
all the maps of the lake. His map in turn will undoubtedly be replaced
some day by detailed topographic surveys of the best quality, such as
the British already contemplate making of that entire region.

A wall map recently in use in one of the public schools of New York City
was a curious example of ignorant compilation. It exhibited the Victoria
Nyanza of Speke, the Bangweolo of Livingstone, and the Upper Congo of
Stanley, all obsolete for practical purposes years before this map was
printed. Most of our home map-makers were very slow in availing
themselves of the rich materials constantly supplied for the maps by the
army of explorers in Africa. But the most alert cartographers,
particularly between 1880 and 1895, could not keep their maps abreast
of the news of discovery as it came to Europe. More men and energy and
money were utilized in those fifteen years of African discovery than in
the first century and a half of American exploration. The route or
mother-maps, some covering a wide extent of country, others devoted to a
small area, or a short line of travel, were going to Europe for the
improvement of atlas sheets by nearly every steamer. Father Schynse's
chart of the southwest extension of Victoria Nyanza had hardly been
utilized in European map-houses before it was replaced by Dr. Baumann's
more accurate survey. Mr. Wauters of Belgium withdrew his large map of
the Congo Basin from the printer four times, in order to include fresh
information before it was finally issued to the public.

This process is still going on, though more slowly. The mapping we see
of Lake Tanganyika, one of the lo