The life and adventures of Mungo Park form a story of exceeding interest, between which and the life and adventures of Dr. Livingstone there are not a few points of remarkable coincidence. Park was a native of Scotland, and one of many children. He was educated also in the medical profession. Moreover, while he was making his first tour of discovery in Africa, having long been absent from home, reports of his death reached England and were universally credited. His arrival at Falmouth in December 1797, caused a most agreeable surprise throughout the kingdom. An account of his travels abounding with thrilling incidents, including accounts of great suffering from sickness and cruelty at the hands of Mohammedan Africans on the Niger, was extensively circulated. Many portions of this narrative were in about all the American school books during the first half of the nineteenth century, and the name of Mungo Park became as familiar as household words in the United States. In 1805, Park undertook another tour of discovery, which he prosecuted for some time with indomitable courage and against difficulties before which an ordinary mind would have succumbed. He navigated the Niger for a long distance, passing Jennee, Timbuctoo, and Yaoori, but was soon after attacked in a narrow channel, and, undertaking to escape by swimming, was drowned. His few remaining white companions perished with him. The discoveries of this celebrated man were in that part of Africa which lies between the equator and the 20th degree of north latitude. They added much to the knowledge of that portion of the country, and keenly whetted the desire of further information. Several journeys and voyages up rivers followed, but without notable result till the English expedition under Denham and Clapperton in 1822. This expedition started with a caravan of merchants from Tripoli on the Mediterranean, and after traversing the great desert reached Lake Tsad in interior Africa. Denham explored the lake and its shores, while Lieut. Clapperton pursued his journey westward as far as Sakatu, which is not greatly distant from the Niger. He retraced his steps, and having visited England, began a second African tour, starting from near Cape Coast Castle on the Gulf of Guinea. Traveling in a northeastern direction, he struck the Niger at Boussa, and going by way of Kano, a place of considerable commercial importance, again arrived at Sakatu, where he shortly afterwards died. He was the first man who had traversed Africa from the Mediterranean sea to the Gulf of Guinea. Richard Lander, a servant of Lieut. Clapperton, afterwards discovered the course of the Niger from Boussa to the gulf, finding it identical with the river Nun of the seacoast. [Illustration: DR. DAVID LIVINGSTONE.]