Jump to content

Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 7.djvu/235

From Wikisource
This page has been validated.
GEOGRAPHICAL WORK OF 1874.
223

the Quilla River, and found a country reminding him of Switzerland. The west coast expedition for the relief of Dr. Livingstone give an interesting account of the region traversed. They found the natives civilized but indolent, and their attention was being given to the cultivation of the India-rubber tree, of the value of which the natives were previously ignorant. On the east coast Mr. Stanley has organized an expedition from Zanzibar at the joint expense of the New York Herald and the London Telegraph, to explore the region last visited by Dr. Livingstone. The French Marine and the Geographical Society will also send an expedition in the same direction. In Australasia, Prof. J. B. Steere, of the Michigan University, has, during a seven months' exploration in Formosa, gathered much valuable information respecting the island and its people. Interesting explorations have been made around New Guinea by H. M. S. Basilisk, and in Australia several remarkable journeys have been made across the country, through dreary regions and among natives in the lowest scale of humanity. A census of the island of Ceylon has been taken for the first time, and found to be 2,500,000; and in the course of the year the Feejee Islands, 312 in number, and covering an area of 8,034 square miles, have been annexed to the kingdom of Great Britain. The world is fully awake to the importance of geographical inquiry, and its thirty-five geographical societies watch the progress of the lonely traveler and self-sacrificing missionary, estimating their labor at its value, and welcoming every addition they make to the stock of human knowledge.

WOOD'S DISCOVERIES AT EPHESUS.

EPHESUS, one of the twelve Ionian cities of Asia Minor, was famous in antiquity as containing one of the seven wonders of the world, the great temple of Artemis, or Diana. From very early times Ephesus was a sacred city; the fable ascribed its foundation to the Amazons, and the Amazonian legend is connected with Artemis. The first Ionian colonists in Lydia found the worship of the goddess already established here in a primitive temple, which was soon superseded by a magnificent structure. This Grecian temple was seven times restored, at the expense of all the Greek communities in Asia Minor. In the year 356 b. c. it was burned to the ground, but again rebuilt in a style of far greater splendor than before, the work extending over 200 years. This later temple was 425 feet long and 220 feet wide. "The foundations were sunk deep in marshy ground, as a precaution against earthquake," says Pliny. There were two rows of columns at the sides, but the front and back porticoes consisted of eight rows of columns, placed four deep. Outside, at the entrance