the questionable or questioned species in the raw and in the cooked condition.

Many years ago I saw a huge mass of fungus (not less than a hundredweight altogether) knocked down from one of the trees in the Green Park, and great lumps were being kicked about Piccadilly.

According to Dr. Badham this was one of the most delicious of all the British fungi, and only required boiling or frying to be equal to so much of the best possible rumpsteak. Yet all present, including many ill-fed specimens of humanity, agreed in regarding the monster as a mass of deadly poison.

IN

NORDENSKJÖLD'S NEW ARCTIC EXPEDITION.

N my note on this subject in last month's number I referred to the view of the physical constitution of Greenland which I ventured to expound in this magazine of July 1880, and also intimated that Nordenskjöld appears to have formed a similar theory, his being of course based on a far wider experience than mine and therefore of correspondingly greater weight.

At the time I wrote the great Arctic explorer had not published his programme, even in Sweden, and for the good reason which he states, viz., that he did "not wish to be interrupted in his preparations with correspondence on his plans and theories."

Such a programme has since been published in "Nature" of May roth, to which magazine it was communicated by the munificent supporter of the expedition, Mr. Oscar Dixon.

In this Nordenskjöld contends for the existence of a fringing zone of glaciers, and its non-extension further inland, as I have done. My theory was based merely on analogy to the known physical conformation of Scandinavia; but he goes further, and explains the philosophy of it. I will endeavour to make this intelligible to non-technical readers.

The atmosphere surrounding us is compressed by the weight of all the air that stands above it, and the amount of this pressure of course diminishes as we ascend above sea level. If a breeze blows along the sea and then meets a mountainous coast, the current of air can only continue its course by ascending the slope of the land. In doing so it encounters diminished pressure and therefore becomes rarefied.

But air cannot thus expand without losing temperature, the heat which showed itself as temperature being used up in doing the mechanical work of expansion. When air is saturated with aqueous vapour, it cannot thus cool down without a proportional condensation

of vapour taking place, its capacity for such vapour being purely and simply dependent upon its temperature. What follows such condensation in the midst of this air that is thus climbing the hills?

It is evident that the latent heat which is given off in the act of condensation must be communicated to the air, and the quantity of this is large. The condensation of one pound of steam into water sets free enough heat to raise 400 lbs. of air ten degrees Fahr.; or 570 lbs. if condensed into snow.

Thus the ascending and expanding air is not cooled to the full extent due to its expansion. It is cooled thereby at first, and warmed again to some extent by the condensation of its aqueous

vapour.

If no such secondary warming occurred, the air on descending the other slope of the hills would by compression just regain its original temperature at corresponding level, but having been thus warmed it regains its original temperature, plus all the heat evolved by condensation.

That mysterious dry warm breeze, the "Föhn," that descends directly from the snow-clad Alps upon certain valleys in Switzerland, is thus explained. A glance at a map of the world will show that all the east and west winds sweeping over Greenland must arrive there fully saturated with vapour, and the mountains of the coast must act upon them in the manner described; thus as they proceed inland they will become warmer and drier wherever there is a downward slope, and therefore we may expect to find a warmer climate at higher latitudes inland.

Nordenskjöld goes so far as to state, that these conditions "seem to demonstrate that it is a physical impossibility that the whole of the interior of this extensive continent can be covered with ice, under the climatic conditions that exist on the globe, south of the 80th degree of latitude."

Such a country of ice and snow demands a supply from vapourladen air, but, as shown above, the air from the south, and east, and west must be robbed of its redundant vapour; so will that from the north when coming to lower latitudes inland.

Nordenskjöld confirms by practical experience my theoretical anticipations of the relative facility of travelling on penetrating further inland. He states that, in company with Dr. Berggren, he penetrated nearly 50 kilometres between July 19 and 26, 1870, across a country at the outset very difficult, and rent by bottomless abysses, but which gradually improved in condition the further

"They did this without either ropes, tents, or suitable

sledges, with no other retinue than two Eskimo, who left them at the end of the second day's journey, after which they did not even carry cooking utensils. This trial convinced Nordenskjöld that "with a couple of smart sailors or Arctic hunters, and with a suitable outfit," he could easily have penetrated two or three hundred kilometres inland.

I

NORDENSKJÖLD'S ROUTE.

SHOULD add in further explanation of the preceding notes that this expedition is not to be provided with hybernating material; the ordinary routine of being frozen up in Smith's Sound will be avoided.

Only one ship will go, as in the case of the old navigators; a second, to be left behind in the ice, is not included in this programme.

It will steam from Gothenburg to Scotland (Thurso), 500 miles, there take in coal, then proceed to Reikiavik in Iceland (700 miles); thence round Cape Farewell to the West Coast of Greenland, stopping at Ivigtuk (870 miles), where a stop will be made for coaling at the depôts already prepared. Then northward along the coast to Egedesminde (an island station in Disco Bay), on to Auleitsivik Fjord (540 miles from Ivigtuk), from the bottom of which fjord the inland expedition will start.

Then leaving the inland explorers behind, the steamer will proceed northwards to Omenak (330 miles) and Cape York (400 miles further), at the head of Melville Bay, where Davis's Strait narrows to form Smith's Sound.

This, however, will depend upon the state of the ice and the stock of coal. As this is not a Polar" expedition, the mere making of high latitude is no part of its programme. The skill of the navigators will be devoted to skirting and dodging the ice in order that the ship may do its part of the projected work.

By the middle of August the ship will again be due in the Auleitsivik Fjord to pick up the inland explorers, after which it will steam back to Ivigtuk for coal. Thence round Cape Farewell again and along the East Coast where open channel is expected, and if so, a search of the fjords will be made in special reference to the old geographical descriptions included in the Icelandic Sagas.

The identification of these fjords is a research of great historical and scientific interest. The mere names given to them in the Sagas tell us nothing, as those names are preserved on no map.

The general objects of the expedition may be thus summarised: 1. To penetrate the interior of Greenland in order to study its

physical geography and search for traces of the lost Norwegian Colonies.

2. To fix the limits of the drift ice between Iceland and Cape Farewell, and to take soundings and dredgings on the whole route. 3. The collection of specimens of the flora of ice and snow. 4. New systematic study of the strata which in Greenland contain fossil plants.

5. The collection of new data connected with the fall of cosmic dust.

THE LOST GREENLAND COLONY.

N the programme referred to above, Nordenskjöld gives further

There

based upon a careful study of the old Scandinavian Sagas. were upwards of three hundred farms, of which about two hundred, embracing twelve parishes, were situated in the Osterbygd (eastern division), and about one hundred in the Vesterbygd (western district), these constituting three or four parishes. During four centuries the country constituted a bishopric with a cathedral (Garda Cathedral), and the colonists were sufficiently well-to-do to contribute funds towards the Holy Wars.

Turning to Sir George Stewart Mackenzie's "Travels in Iceland," published 1811, I find a similar account. According to this, Eric fitted out twenty-five ships, of which fourteen reached Greenland, and the Bishops of Garda were well known to the Roman Pontiffs of the time, the appointments from Rome verifying the Scandinavian records. The date of the first emigration is here given as A.D. 972, and Sir G. S. Mackenzie states that "the records of the settlement came down uninterruptedly to the beginning of the 15th century, when at once every trace and vestige of it are lost."

It is a strange fact, that with all our Arctic expeditions, nothing has been done towards discovering any vestiges of this great Arctic mystery. This is doubtless due to general ignorance of the subject; our scholars are so much engaged upon the Greek and Latin classics that they know nothing of the ancient and noble literature of our

own race.

They pretend that their monkish inheritance of Latin is taught to their pupils in order to assist them in the study of English, while they utterly neglect the study of the old Norsk of the Sagas, which is the original foundation upon which our present tongue is built.

W. MATTIEU WILLIAMS.

TOM

TABLE TALK.

A SPANISH BIBLIOPHILE.

`O Mr. Richard Copley Christie, author of the "Life of Etienne Dolet," a monument of research, scholarship, and erudition, most Englishmen will be indebted for the knowledge that Spain has produced a bibliophile worthy to rank with the great collectors of France and England. An essay written by Mr. Christie on the Marquis de Morante has been printed as a pamphlet and privately circulated. From this is obtained a glimpse of a very strange and interesting individuality. Don Joaquin Gomez de la Cortina, Marquis de Morante, was born in Mexico in 1808, of a noble Spanish family in the province of Santander. In the course of a life of sixty years he purchased a library of one hundred and twenty thousand volumes, including not only some of the rarest of bibliographical treasures but an unprecedentedly large collection of volumes in those luxurious bindings which are now a chief object of search. In 1862 M. Gustave Brunet, of Bordeaux, in the Bulletin du Bibliophile introduced to the knowledge of the French public this priceless collection. Subsequently M. Paul Lacroix (le Bibliophile Jacob) describes Motteley, the model collector, bursting upon him with the information that Spain at length possesses "a bibliophile." Giving up the offices he held of curator, rector of the University of Madrid, and member of the supreme Tribunal of Justice, the Marquis devoted himself during the later years of his life to the task of cataloguing his precious books. His life was almost that of an ascetic. Little, thin, with prominent cheek bones, and very bright eyes, he suffered from a perpetual cold in the head caught in the galleries of his library. Public entertainments never attracted him; an occasional game of cards, over which when he lost he grew quarrelsome, was his only amusement, and his ordinary practice was to receive the visits of a few friends, whom he constantly put in his will for legacies and then struck out again when their conduct dissatisfied him. His death came, appropriately enough, as the result of a fall from a ladder in his library. The catalogue of the books of this eccentric nobleman occupies. nine volumes. Three copies are known to be in England: one in VOL. CCLIV. NO. 1830.

UU