Dec. 5, 1889] 



NATURE 



III 



identical with the earliest styles found at Mykenac, at 

 Thera, and at Mytilene ; and we are now able to date 

 those stages of early culture in the Greek lands to 

 1300 B.C., a fixed point of the greatest value. 



The most novel discovery of all is the presence of appa- 

 rently alphabetic signs in use in both towns (Fig. 2), and 

 by all the circumstances amply guaranteed to be of about 

 2500 p,.c. and 1300 B.C. Our existing theories of alpha- 

 betic development require us to suppose that the Phoeni- 

 cian letters were established before 2000 B.C. ; as the 

 Egyptian writing from which De Rougd derived them, 

 vvas extinct after that date; and the Cypriote syllabic 

 signs must be older. Thus, though no known inscriptions 

 can be placed before about 900 15. c, yet the forms must 

 have started about the same period as that of the first of 

 these towns, Kahun. The conditions that we find, there- 

 fore, of a great variety of signs in use, many of which have 

 not survived, while others have drifted apart into many 

 different alphabets, are just what might be expected at 



Fig. 2. 



Continuous inscrip- Sign'; incised in pottery (the dots separating 

 tion on wood. different examples. 



Signs incised on pottery of the twelfth dynasty (Kahiin\ 



Signs on pottery of the eighteenth to nineteenth dynasty (Gurob). 



these early times. The apparent connection of these 

 signs with some of the mison's mar'.'CS of Egypt suggests 

 that they may have been adopted by the foreign workmen 

 from their Egyptian fellow-labourers ; and the very lack 

 of literary education among such men would lead to 

 their forming alphabets of their own from such materials. 

 We have at least now obtained two well-defined stages, 

 between the finished and segregated alphabets of the 

 period of known inscriptions, of 900 B.C. downward, and 

 the original elements of Egyptian hieroglyphs, hieratic, 

 ■mason's marks, and perhaps Hittite and cuneiform cha- 

 racters, from which the alphabets were evolved. To dis- 

 •cuss the historical descent of the signs, and to form a 

 •continuous theory of them, will need much discussion, 

 and more materials. Meanwhile, my work will lie in the 

 ■complete gathering in of what may still remain in these 

 itowns. A full account and drawings of every sign and 

 every object of importance found this year will appear 

 in a few months. W. M. Flinders Petrie. 



MR. STANLEY'S GEOGRAPHICAL DIS- 

 COVERIES. 

 THIS week an interesting letter from Mr. Stanley to 

 Colonel Grant has been published. It is dated, 

 ^'Villages of Batundu, Ituri River, Central Africa, Sep- 

 tember 8, 1888." Speaking of Lake Albert, Mr. Stanley 

 says: — 



" When on December 13, 1887, we sighted the lake, the 

 southern part lay at our feet almost, like an immense 

 map. We glanced rapidly over the grosser details — the 

 lofty plateau walls of Unyoro to the east, and that of 

 Baregga to the west, rising nearly 3000 feet above the 

 silver water, and between the walls stretched a plain — 

 seemingly very flat— grassy, with here and there a dark 

 clump of brushwood— which as the plain trended south- 

 westerly became a thin forest. The south-west edge of 



the lake seemed to be not more than six miles away from 

 where we stood — by observation the second journey I 

 fixed it at nine miles direct south-easterly from the place. 

 This will make the terminus of the south-west corner at 

 I 17' N. lat. By prismatic compass the magnetic bearing 

 of the south-east corner just south of Numba Falls was 

 137^, this will make it about 1° 11' 30" N. lat. A magnetic 

 bearing of 148' taken from N. lat. i' 25' 30" about exactly 

 describes the line of shore running from the south-west 

 corner of the lake to the south-east corner of the Albert. 

 Baker fixed his position at N. lat. i" 15', if I recollect 

 rightly. The centre of Mbakovia Terrace bears 121" 30' 

 magnetic from my first point of observation, this will 

 make his Vacovia about i' 15' 45", allowing lo"^ west varia- 

 tion. 



" In trying to solve the problem of the infinity of Lake 

 Albert as sketched by Baker, and finding that the lake 

 terminus is only four miles south of where he stood to 

 view it ' from a little hill,' and on ' a beautifully clear 

 day,' one would almost feel justified in saying that he had 

 never seen the lake. But his position of Vacovia proves 

 that he actually was there, and the general correctness of 

 his outline of the east coast from Vacovia to Magungo 

 also proves that he navigated the lake. When we turn 

 our faces north-east, we say that Baker has done exceed- 

 ingly well, but, when we turn them southward, our senses 

 in vain try to penetrate the mystery, because our eyes see 

 not what Baker saw. When Gassi Pasha first sketched 

 the lake after Baker, and reduced the immense lake to 

 one about ninety miles long, my faith was in Baker, 

 because Gessi could not resolve by astronomical ob- 

 servations the south end of the lake. When Mason Bey 

 — an accomplished surveyor — in 1877 circumnavigated 

 the lake, and corroborated Gessi, then I thought that 

 perhaps Mason had met a grassy barrier or sandbank 

 overgrown with sedge and ambatch, and had not reached 

 the true beyond, because he admitted that he could not 

 see very far from the deck of his steamer, my faith still 

 rested in Baker ; but now, with Lieutenant Stairs, of the 

 Royal Engineers, Mr. Mounteneyjephson, Surgeon Parke, 

 Emin Pasha, Captain Casati, I have looked with my own 

 eyes upon the scene, and find that Baker has made an 

 error. . . . 



" I am somewhat surprised also at Baker's altitudes of 

 Lake Albert, and the ' Blue Mountains,' and at the 

 breadth attributed by him to the lake. The shore oppo- 

 site Vacovia is ten and a quarter miles distant, not forty 

 or fifty miles; the 'Blue Mountains' are nothing else 

 but the west upland — the highest cone or hill being not 

 above 6000 feet above the level of the sea, not 7000 or 

 8000 feet high. The altitude of Lake Albert by aneroid 

 and boiling-point will not exceed 2350, not 2720, feet. 



"And last of all, away to the south-west where he has 

 sketched his 'infinite' stretch of lake, there rises, about 

 forty miles from Vacovia, an immense snowy mountain — 

 a solid square-browed mass with an almost level summit 

 between two lofty ridges. If it were 'a beautifully clear 

 day ' he should have seen this, being nearer to it by 

 thirteen geographical miles than I was." 



Of the snowy Mountain, Mr. Stanley writes as fol- 

 lows : — 



" My interest is greatly excited, as you may imagine, 

 by the discovery of Ruwenzori — the Snowy Mountain — a 

 possible rival of Kilimanjaro. Remember that we are in 

 north latitude, and that this mountain must be near on 

 the equator itself, that it is summer now, that we saw it 

 in the latter part of May, and that the snow-line was 

 about (estimate only) 1000 feet below the summit. Hence 

 I conclude that it is not Mount Gordon Bennett, seen in 

 December 1876 (though it may be so), which, the natives 

 said, had only snow occasionally. At the time I saw the 

 latter, there was no snow visible. It is a little further 

 east, according to the position I gave it, than Ruwenzori. 



" All the questions which this mountain naturally gives 



