in the Mountains of the Moon. 227 



By Ptolemy, however, the main stream of the Nile is laid 

 down as consisting of two principal arms, the junction of 

 which is placed in the second parallel of north latitude, or 

 nearly 7° to the south of where the junction of the three 

 principal arms actually takes place. In order to prevent 

 misunderstanding, it is proper to direct attention to the fact, 

 that we are not alluding here to the confluence of the White 

 and Blue Rivers, commonly but erroneously called the White 

 and ^\\xe Niles* which confluence takes place at Khartum, in 

 15° 37' N, lat. That is merely the junction of the Astapus with 

 the Nilus; whereas Ptolemy's bifurcation of tlie Nile is formed 

 by the union of the River of Habesh with the White River, 

 in 9° 20' N. lat., more than 6° of latitude beyond Khartum. 

 The two lakes from which that geographer's two arms of the 

 Nile are considered to flow, are placed by him in the 6th and 

 7th parallels of south latitude ; and the Mountains of the 

 Moon, in which the sources of those two arms are situate, 

 are made to stretch across the Continent from east to west 

 in 12° 30' S. lat. 



Were we to assume an amount of error in these latter in- 

 stances equal to that which exists in the case of the junction 

 of the two arms of the Nile, we should have to place the 

 lakes between the equator and the first parallel of N. lat. ; 

 and the Mountains of the Moon, and, consequently, the sources 

 of the Nile, as also the island of Menuthias, in 5° 30' S. lat. 

 Closely as this result would coincide with my views generally 

 respecting the position of the head of the Nile, I am bound 

 to confess, that Ptolemy's information is of too vague and 

 insufficient a nature to permit of its being treated with any 

 such precision. It is, in fact, of little avail to investigate 

 any of the details of that geographei''s map separately. We 

 can properly only look at it as a whole. And on an exami- 

 nation of it in this point of view, we may reasonably arrive 

 at the conclusion, that Ptolemy, like ourselves at the present 

 day, derived his information respecting the Nile — either im- 

 mediately, or through Marinus of Tyre and other geogra- 

 phers who had preceded him — from two distinct and uncon- 



* 'Rejourn. Roy. Geogr. Soc, vol. xvii., pp. 35, 73, note. 



