50 



NATURE 



\_Nov. 15, 1877 



intrepid traveller. Mr. Stanley is bent on calling the 

 great river, so much of which he has explored, by the 

 name of Livingstone. As a rule we think it a mistake to 

 change native geographical names where these can be 

 satisfactorily ascertained. In the case of the Lualaba- 

 Congo, however, the river seems to have quite as many 

 names as there are tribes or villages on its banks, and it 

 would be a happy solution of the difficulty to confer upon 

 it the most memorable name among African explorers. 

 Mr. Stanley himself has taken great pains to obtain accu- 

 rately the native names of tribes and places, and he 

 animadverts with severity on geographers for crowding 

 the map of Africa with names that probably correspond 

 to nothing. For this they cannot be greatly blamed, 

 neither need he be too hard on previous travellers for 

 misunderstanding the significance of native words. 



A glance at the map, notwithstanding that it is based to 

 some extent on conjecture, shows at once the vast import- 

 ance of Mr. Stanley's discovery. Great tributaries join 

 the main river from both sides, and we are assured there 

 are many more besides these shown on the map. For 

 more than 800 miles of its course, above the Yellala Falls, 

 the river looks more like a long winding lake than any- 

 thing else, forming a magnificent channel for navigation. 

 Above the upper cataract, again, about the equator, many 

 other long reaches are capable of navigation, while the 

 affluents will afford over 1,200 miles, and perhaps much 

 more. Some idea of the increasing magnitude of the 

 river below Nyangwe may be obtained from Stanley's 

 statement that at Nyang we the volume is 124,000 cubic 

 feet per second, while Behm's calculation on the basis of 

 Tuckey's trustworthy observations makes its volume at 

 the mouth to be 1,800,000 cubic feet per second. Poor 

 Tuckey comes in for a share of Stanley's castigation, 

 because, according to Stanley, the former mistook the 

 number of stages of the Yellala Rapids ; even if Tuckey 

 was a little out in his counting, which we doubt, 

 he will still be found to have been, all circumstances 

 considered, an accurate observer. Many points, also, in 

 connection with the map, show how true was Living- 

 stone's geographical instinct^ and how near the truth his 

 inferences came from the information obtained from the 

 Arabs and natives. Stanley is probably right in conjec- 

 turing that the Aruwimi, coming from the north-east, and 

 joining the Livingstone a little north of the equator, is the 

 Welle, and that the Ikelemba is the lower course of the 

 Kasai. The water of the latter is of the colour of tea, 

 and does not thoroughly mingle with the main stream 

 until after 130 miles below the confluence. The banks of 

 the great river are thickly populated by what appear to 

 be industrious people living in extensive and well laid out 

 towns, and naturally jealous of intruders. The three most 

 powerful tribes on the middle and lower rivers are the 

 Wa-Mangala, the Warunga, and the Wyanzi. 



The Livingstone, Mr. Stanley found, is subject to periodi- 

 cal rises mainly owing to the rains, and varying from eight 

 to fifty feet. The entire length of the Livingstone Mr. 

 Stanley calculates at 2,900 miles, and its basin at 860,000 

 square miles. The extreme sources of the Bemba Lake, 

 from which the Luapula flows, are in 33° E. long. Lake 

 Bemba, or Bangweolo, Stanley states — and there appears 

 to be good ground for the belief — is the residuum of an 

 enormous lake that in very ancient times must have 

 occupied an area of 500,000 square miles, " until by some 

 great convulsion the western maritime mountain chain 

 was riveii asunder, and the Livingstone began to roar 

 through the fracture." As to the "great convulsion" 

 and the " fracture," geologists may be able to decide 

 when they are in possession of full information as to Mr. 

 Stanley's observations. Nyangwe, Mr. Stanley informs 

 us, is in 4° 16' S., and 26° 5' E. ; but by an unaccount- 

 able mistake in another place he gives the latitude as 26° 

 15' 45", and that, too, while pointing out, in his peculiar 

 way, a slight mistake in the position on Stanford's map of 



1874. The position then was perfectly correct according 

 to the data, and in the latest editions the position is 

 exactly as Stanley gives it. 



Mr. Stanley insists on the importance of the river 

 as a commercial highway, the country traversed by it 

 being abundantly rich in products that would find a ready 

 market in Europe. Naturally, on Monday night, Africa 

 was the burden of the president's address at the opening 

 of the Geographical Society. Sir Rutherford Alcock in- 

 sisted that it now remained with the merchant, aided if need 

 be by Government, to open up Africa still further. Indeed 

 the country is now being attacked by national and private 

 expeditions on all sides, and if a basis for minute explo- 

 ration were formed by trading stations under government 

 sanction and regulation, along the Livingstone, our know- 

 ledge of the country would grow rapidly, and the benefits 

 to commerce would be incalculable. Only, however, 

 could the natives have fair play by governmental regu- 

 lation of private enterprise. There is no danger of 

 extinction for the native African, and it would be both 

 prudent and just to protect him from the horrible cruelties 

 at which Mr. Stanley hints in the conclusion of his letter. 



It is worth noticing that in the map the Lukuga runs 

 boldly from Lake Tanganyika and joins the Lualaba, and 

 the source of the Alexandra Nile is brought to near 4° 

 south on the east side of the lake. 



According to latest intelligence Mr. Stanley is at the 

 Cape wanting to get his followers sent back to Zanzibar. 

 In his letter in yesterday's Telegraph he gives an inter- 

 esting account of his companion, Frank Pocock, of whom 

 he speaks in the highest terms, and whose death is a real 

 loss to African exploration. 



The Daily News Alexandria Correspondent writes (on 

 the 5th) that Signori Gessi and Matteucci have just 

 started from Cairo for Khartum, via Assouan, by the 

 Nile, instead of taking the shorter route by the Red Sea 

 to Massowa. They are provided with the newest and 

 most improved scientific instruments, and having promised 

 to keep up constant communication with the Geographical 

 Society at Rome, interesting accounts of their movement 

 and progress will be looked for. 



MODERN TORPEDO WARFARE 



n^WO elements have contributed to make torpedo 

 -*- warfare what it is : electricity and the new explosive 

 compounds. It is true that in the Whitehead or fish 

 torpedo recourse is had only to the latter of these, but it 

 is the sole material exception, and all the mischief effected 

 by this branch of marine warfare has been, so far, the 

 result of electric torpedoes. Both on the Danube and in 

 the last American war, when no less than twenty-five 

 ships were sunk by the Confederates, the electric torpedo 

 has worked extensive injury, and it is no wonder therefore 

 that a keen interest should be taken in all that pertains 

 to so novel and destructive a method of kiUing and 

 wounding. 



We have called the torpedo a novel weapon, and the 

 instruments that go by the name to-day undoubtedly are 

 so. At the time of the Crimean war, we had to do with 

 torpedoes of a kind ; nay, even so far back as the 

 beginning of the seventeenth century, floating charges, 

 called petards, were employed, but these were of too 

 insigriificant a nature to merit attention. The " infernal 

 machines" strewn in the Baltic by the Russians twenty 

 years ago were small canisters of powder containing by 

 way of igniting arrangement a mixture of chlorate of 

 potash and sugar, together with a glass bulb with sul- 

 phuric acid ; and the latter, escaping from its envelope 

 when this was broken by a shock or collision, brought 

 about an immediate explosion. These mechanical tor- 

 pedoes had two disadvantages ; the igniting arrangement 

 was of such a character that it could be set in action just 

 as well by friend as by foe, and the explosion of the gun- 



