TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 63 _ 
scarcely exceeds an inch. This corresponds with the deposits of carbonate of lime in 
| _ the roof, where the fault is choked up by the material, but which hang in no graceful 
stalagmites but unite in one large mass, except near the entrance, at which extremity 
a square original-shaped portion impends, which in the eye of the tradition of the neigh- 
_ bourhood has assumed the form of a flitech of bacon, hence the peculiar cognomen 
Bacon Hole, by which the cave is known. From the fault on either side the roof 
descends in a direct line until it meets the floor, forming a triangular entrance. 
The most important: remains which yet have been found in this cave consist of 
teeth of the ox, deer, and other ruminants, together with a portion of the cranium of 
a dee? and a few bones of a bat; all the last save one were found in such close prox- 
_ imity as to lead fairly to the inference that they belonged to the same bird; and 
many other bones, the most of which seem to belong to the deer. Teeth of carnivo- 
rous animals were also found, among which were the left under canine of an old Ursus 
speleus; also the canine and molar of a young bear of the same species; also a molar, 
the milk tooth, probably of a young hyena. 
At the same time were exhibited many specimens of antlers of the Cervus elaphus, 
and one probably of the moose deer; these are all attached to portions of the skull, 
affording evidence of having not been cast in the annual shedding season. These, 
together with a human skull, were discovered at the depth of six feet in the clay below 
the bed of the river Tawey. 
On the Sources of the Nile in the Mountains of the Moon. By Dr. Bexe*. 
This paper was in continuation of one ‘On the Nile and its Tributaries,’ read be- 
fore the Royal Geographical Society of London during the Session of 1846-47, and 
printed in the 17th volume of that Society’s Journal. : 
The author’s hypothesis is, that the principal sources of the Nile, according to 
Ptolemy, are in the country of Mono-Moézz, near the east coast of Africa, and that the 
name “ Mountains of the Moon,” arose from the translation of the word AZoézi, 
which signifies moon in the language of the Sawahilis, or ‘‘ dwellers on the coast,” 
from whom the Greek merchants and seamen of Alexandria trading with India and 
Eastern Africa, obtained the particulars respecting the Upper Nile which are re- 
_ corded by Ptolemy. 
Dr. Beke exhibited two maps, showing the Nile and the east coast of Africa, the 
one acccrding to Ptolemy, and the other according to his own hypothesis; and ap- 
plying the positive knowledge possessed at the present day to the correction of the 
fundamental error of Ptolemy’s map, namely its general extension much too far 
southwards, he inferred that the head of the Nile, which that geographer places on 
_ the western side of the country of the Anthropophagi, bordering on the Barbaricus 
_ Sinus, in the vicinity of the island of Menuthias, is most probably situate in about 2° S. 
_ Jat. and 34° E. long., at the extreme eastern edge of the table-land of Eastern Africa, 
and at a distance of about 300 or 400 miles from the island of Zanzibar, which island 
he identified with Menuthias. 
_ The author next showed how, in his opinion, Ptolemy fell into the very natural 
 etror of making the Mountains of the Moon extend from east to west across the con- 
tinent of Africa, at right angles to the general direction of the course of the rivers 
_ flowing from them; whereas the actual direction of the eastern edge of the table-land, 
which to the Saw4hilis or natives of the coast has the appearance of an extensive 
_ range of lofty mountains, and which Dr. Beke identifies with the Mountains of the 
_ Moon, is from about S.W. to N.E.; and by measuring 600 miles in the latter direction 
such being the distance that Ptolemy makes exist between the two heads of the 
Nile in those mountains—he hypothetically placed in about 7° N. lat. and 39° E. long., 
_ the source of that geographer’s second arm of the river. This second arm Dr. Beke 
_ identifies with the Sobat, Telfi, or river of Habesh, which joins the Bahr el Abyad or 
_ White River in about 9° 20’ N. lat., and which was considered by the officers of the 
e Egyptian exploring expeditions, who ascended it 80 miles, to contribute to the Nile 
a 
oa 
nearly a moiety of its waters. 
‘The author adverted particularly to the fact, that the confluence, at Khartém in 
- 15° 87! N. lat., of the White and Blue Rivers—commonly but erroneously called the 
= 
_ * Printed tx éxtenso in the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, vol. xlv. pp. 221=251, 
