1829.] Course and probable Terminatioti of the Niger. 185 



latitude of Ptolemy* (a difference amounting to only six hundred geo- 

 graphical miles), he says, that " it will receive countenance and perhaps 

 justification from Park's averment, that, ' in that quarter he was told a 

 stream arose, which ran from the south into the Niger.' " — P. 85. 



Speaking of the Kong and Mandara Mountains, Sir Rufane says, that 

 " a question has been raised as to the continuity or non-continuity of 

 this central range ; but his own opinion is, that this range is continuous, 

 and that it has no opening any where by which a river could pass ; nor 

 does he think that any river would ever wear through the immense and 

 elevated mass of granite which, we no7v kno?v, forms the base of this 

 grand range. That this base," adds Sir R., " is composed of granite, 

 we have the most unequivocal testimonies of Captain Clapperton, when he 

 crossed its western end at the dip in the Kong mountains, and of ]VIajor 

 Denham, when he went to the Mandara range, which is at the eastern 

 end."_P. 112. 



In our researches upon this subject, we have not been so fortunate as 

 to light upon the " unequivocal testimonies" of these travellers. It is 

 true that mountains, at several hundred miles apai't, were at different 

 intervals of time crossed by Clapperton and Denham : but how the inter- 

 mediate space is known to be continuous, or " the immense and elevated 

 mass of granite which forms the base of this grand range," has been 

 traced through so many degrees of longitude, our author can best 

 explain. Indeed, the General's argument may be here answered, in the 

 same way that Grey Jackson (one of Sir R.'s most revered authorities) 

 replies to Park on a similar question : — 



" Sir. Park's annotator may say, that the fact of this stream running 

 to the west towards Wangara cannot be admitted, because Mr. Brown 

 did not ascertain that this was an tininterrupted ridge ; the river might 

 therefore pass through some chasm similar to that which / have seen in 

 crossing the Atlas mountains ; or through some intermediate plain." — 

 P. 445, Account of Timbucto and Housa, edited by Grey Jackson, Esq., 

 1820. 



And so we say that, until " this central range" has been thoroughly 

 explored, and is proved to be one continuous " uninterrupted ridge" 

 of granite at its base, we shall neither reject as impossible nor improbable 

 that a terminating branch of the Niger takes not a southern direction mto 

 the Atlantic. 



After disputing with great reluctance the theories of D'AnvUle and 

 Alajor Reimell, touching the subject in question, our author says — 



" In regard to Major Rennell's Map, published in 1798, to show the progress 

 of discovery in North Africa, I have to point out one very great error in it, 

 similar to those I have pointed out in D'Anville's Map, naraely, that one of the 

 places which is inserted in it with Ptolemy's name attached, is not put down 

 in the longitude prescribed by Ptolemy. 



" We are to keep in mind that Major Rennell's first meridian is drawn 

 through Greenwich. 



__^ ■ ■ n — ' 



• Speaking of his alteration of this latitude of Ptolemy, the General says, " But tliis 

 latitude must be wrong, for, any source of the Ni-Geir in 17° N., so far firom being a 

 simllieni source of tliat river, would be several degrees to the northward of its whole 

 general course, and, indeed 17" N. is within the limits of the great desert ; I am con- 

 strained therefore to suppose, that the transcriber of some 1\IS. must have mistaken some 

 splash of a pen which had fallen before the Greek numeral f, or 7, for the Greek numeml 

 1 or 10, and, that in copying, instead of writing, as he ought to have done, the ^la^ to be 

 ^' or 7, he wrote i^' or I?." 



M.M. New .Smf.9.— Vol. VIII. No. 44. 2 B 



