42 PETHERICK'S JOURNEY UP THE WHITE NILE, [Jan. 9, 186a. 



Mr. Petherick had not adverted to several topics on which he (Sir V\.) 

 might have said a few words. In one portion of his travels Mr. Petherick 

 had collected various minerals and ores ; and though the region of Africa 

 which he had traversed was not occupied by those ancient rocks which, 

 for the most part, furnish gold and other minerals of importance, still in 

 one of these regions he had collected masses of clay which, having been 

 analysed by Dr. Percy of the Government School of Mines, had proved to 

 contain a considerable portion of gold ore, and he hoped his friend Mr. Petherick 

 might be the first to profit by it. In conclusion he heartily hoped that the 

 •scheme of developing the true source of the White Nile, which they had in 

 hand, might be so accomplished that we should be the first people wlio 

 really discovered the sources of the great historical river. Whether those 

 sources rise farther to the west than the great Lake Nyanza which Captain 

 Speke had discovered, or whether the main source was, as is most probable, 

 that lake itself, he was quite sure that by the new co-operating expeditions 

 which were designed by the Geographical Society, and which he hoped the 

 Government would assist, the discovery would greatly redound to the honour 

 of the nation, and would largely advance geographical knowledge. 



Colonel Sykes, v.p.r.g.s., said the Society had to thank Mr. Petherick 

 for the extremely frank and candid manner in which he had told them what 

 they might and what they might not rely upon in his narrative. With 

 regard to localities, longitudes, latitudes, and the elevation of the country, 

 he stated that he had no means of determining them accurately by the aid of 

 scientific instruments, consequently the western course he had given to the 

 Nile might, in fact, be much more to the eastward, and approximate more to 

 the Lake Nyanza, discovered by Captain Speke, than Mr. Petherick had 

 supposed. They were also indebted to Mr. Petherick for the politic and humane 

 lesson he had brought to their notice, and which might be useful elsewhere 

 than in the centre of Africa, namely, that in attempting intercourse with any 

 people whatever, our object should be to convince them in an amicable 

 way that the intercourse was for their own interest as miich as for ours, and 

 then we should be sure to gain their good-will, and to have their efficient 

 and useful services. But that intercourse which was gained by force of arras 

 could only in general be maintained by force of arms. Captain Speke stated 

 that the southern end of the Lake he discovered, Nyanza, was in about 2^ 

 degrees south latitude, and that he supposed it extended to two or three 

 degrees to the north of the Equator. But as he had only the informa- 

 tion of natives who had not definite ideas of distance, it might or might not 

 be true ; it might terminate on the Equator — indeed it might terminate in 

 those gravelly ramifications of the Nile which a French traveller, on a former 

 expedition, found in 4° north latitude, where the river worked into a great 

 number of small channels extending over a very wide surface, possibly com- 

 municating with the reedy lake that Mr. Petherick mentioned, where he quitted 

 the river altogether and then travelled to the southward by land. He was 

 much disposed to think that the elevation of the country north of the Equator 

 which Captain Speke spoke of as being only 2000 feet, would be found to be 

 much higher than that, as the structure of the country did not seem to indi- 

 cate at all a trap district, or descent by steps or terraces from the height of 

 Lake Nyanza (4000 feet). He concurred rather with Mr. Petherick in sup- 

 posing that there would be a gradual ascent of the country up to the Equator. 

 On the whole he entertained great hopes that when Mr. Petherick and Captain 

 Speke renewed their travels, they would meet and embrace each other on the 

 Equator, coming from opposite directions, and that they would then find that 

 Mr. Petherick's reedy lake on the Nile and Lake Nyanza had a direct com- 

 munication with each other. 



Mr. Consul Hanson (a native of Africa) thought it must have occurred to 



