in the Mountains of the Moon. 237 



course of the Nile is in a general direction from south to north, 

 the natural presumption would be, that the " Mountains of 

 the Moon" extended from east to west, the two arms of the 

 Nile being made to form the sides of an isosceles triangle, 

 of which those mountains constituted the base ; and so they 

 would be, as in fact they are, laid down in Ptolemy's map. 



This would be the case in the absence of all preconceived 

 notions on the subject. But if, as we must believe, the geo- 

 gi'apher of Alexandria had heard, in the same way as Hero- 

 dotus had heard upwards of 500 years before him, of a great 

 western arm of the Nile, the argviment becomes so much the 

 stronger ; for there w6uld then have existed an actual posi- 

 tive reason for placing the second source of that river to the 

 west of the first, in preference to any other direction. 



As, however, the range of the Mountains of the Moon^ 

 that is to say, that portion of the eastern edge of the table- 

 land of Eastern Africa which forms the present subject of 

 consideration — runs nearly from south-west to north-east, 

 it is manifest that the head of Ptolemy's second arm of the 

 Nile has to be placed in this latter direction. And if we 

 assume, as we have already shown reason for assuming, that 

 the one source is situate in about 2° S. lat. and 34° E. long., 

 the position of the other, at a distance of about 600 miles in 

 the above-mentioned direction, will fall in about 7° N. lat. 

 and 39° E. long. ; and accordingly it is so laid down in the 

 map which I have constructed. 



From the large amount of knowledge which has been ac- 

 quired, during the last few years, respecting the countries 

 situate to the south of Abessinia, we are enabled to assert 

 the actual existence of a principal arm of the Nile, having 

 some of its sources in the very position which has thus been 

 hypothetically attributed to Ptolemy's second head of that 

 river. When the Egyptian expeditions ascended the Bahr el 

 Abyad, they came, in about 9° 20' N. lat., to a large river 

 joining the main stream from the ESE., up which they pe- 

 netrated about 80 miles, finding it to be (as has already been 

 stated)*. of such magnitude that it was considered to contri- 



* Page 226. 

 VOL. XLV. NO. XC. — OCTOBER 1848. r' 



