562 



NATURE 



\Apnt II, i: 



Stairs had a narrow escape. It was afterwards found 

 that the poison is manufactured from the dried bodies of 

 red ants or pismires ground into powder, cooked in palm- 

 oil, and smeared over the wooden points of the arrows. 

 As might have been expected, the forest is haunted by 

 myriads of insects of every variety, and it is to be hoped 

 that a harvest of these have been gathered for the delight 

 of the entomologists at home. 



Mr. Stanley's description of the daily course of things 

 in the forest region is worth quoting : — 



" The mornings generally were stern and sombre, the 

 sky covered with lowering and heavy clouds, at other 

 times thick mist buried everything, clearing off about 

 9 a.m., sometimes not till 11 a.m. Nothing stirs then ; 

 insect life is still asleep, the forest is still as death, the 

 dark river, darkened by lofty walls of thick forest and 

 vegetation, is silent as a grave ; our heart-throbs seem 

 almost clamorous, and our inmost thoughts loud. If no 

 rain follows this darkness, the sun appears from behind 

 the cloudy masses, the mist disappears, life wakens up 

 before its brilliancy. Butterflies scurry through the air, a 

 sohtary ibis croaks an alarm, a diver flies across the 

 stream, the forest is full of a strange murmur, and some- 

 where up-river booms the alarum drum. The quick- 

 sighted natives have seen us, voices vociferate challenges, 

 there is a flash of spears, and hostile passions are 

 aroused." 



As to the river itself, the Aruwimi, or Ituri (it has 

 several other names), is, with its windings, about 800 

 miles long, from its mouth in the Congo to its source 

 alrnost on the edge of Albert Nyanza, though the course 

 in a direct line is probably not more than 400 miles. 

 The banks of the river, covered with forest from the 

 Congo to the Nepoko (which is, after all, only a branch 

 of the main river), are uniformly low, here and there 

 rising to about 40 feet. Above the Nepoko, hills begin 

 to crop up more frequently, palms are mare numerous, 

 and the woods show the tall, white-stemmed trees so 

 characteristic of the slopes of the Lower Congo. While 

 there are rapids at several places above Yambuya, above 

 the Nepoko navigation becomes much more difficult, and 

 rapids more frequent, while two considerable falls are met 

 with. The land rises steadily until about 400 miles above 

 Yambuya, the river is contracted into a rushing stream 

 about 100 yards wide, banked by the steep walls of a 

 canon, the slopes and summits of which are clothed with 

 wood. Whatever changes the face of the land may show, 

 the forest covers peak, hill, ridge, valley, plain, — every- 

 where it is continuous, never broken, except at such 

 clearings as man has made. Mr. Stanley very graphically 

 compares the country traversed by his expedition to the 

 long glacis of a fort rising froni the Congo to a height of 

 5000 to 6000 feet ; down the slope flows the Aruwimi, one 

 of whose feeders runs almost within sight of Albert 

 Nyanza, to which there is a sudden drop of 2900 feet. 



" The main Ituri, at the distance of 680 miles from its 

 mouth, is 125 yards wide, 9 feet deep, and has a current 

 of 3 knots. It appears to run parallel with the Nyanza. 

 Near that group of cones and hills, affectionately named 

 Mount Schweinfurth, Mount Junker, and Mount Speke, 

 I would place its highest source. Draw three or four 

 respectable streams draining into it from the crest of 

 plateau overlooking the Albert Nyanza, and two or three 

 respectable streams flowing into it from north-westerly ; 

 let the main stream flow south-west to near N. lat. 1° ; give 

 it a bow-like form N. lat. i" to N. lat. r 50' ; then let it I 

 flow with curves and bends down to N. lat. 1° 17' near j 

 Yambuya, and you have a sketch of the course of the | 

 Aruwimi or Ituri from the highest source down to its 1 

 mouth, and the length of this Congo tributary will be I 

 800 miles." I 



Here, then, we have remarkable hydrographical condi- ! 

 tions. Only a few minutes' walk separates the feeders of 

 the Congo and the Nile in this part cular region. On the 



other side, again, are found streams flowing into the 

 south of Victoria Nyanza rising close to others which run 

 into Lake Tanganyika, which again, through the Lukuga, 

 is believed to be a feeder of the Congo. Still further south 

 are found the main Congo stream and its feeders rising in 

 such close proximity to the source of the Zambesi that it 

 is difficult to discrimate between the one and the other. 

 Mr. Stanley's own lake, the Muta Nzige, of which he 

 heard again when in the neighbourhood, very probably 

 belongs not to the Nile but the Congo. All this is full of 

 interest, and geographers will look with impatience for 

 the publication of Mr. Stanley's detailed narrative. 



Another fact of great interest Mr. Stanley refers to — 

 the existence of a snowy mountain which may rival Kili- 

 manjaro (19,000 feet), in the neighbourhood of Mount 

 Gambaragara, or Gordon Bennett, between Albert 

 Nyanza and Muta Nzige. This may be Mount Gordon 

 Bennett itself, but Mr. Stanley does not think so, and he 

 is supported by the few data which he furnishes. It 

 would be quite in accordance with what we find in other 

 parts of the world that a group of high peaks should be 

 found together. 



One other point of geographical interest is Mr. Stanley's 

 observation that the Albert Nyanza is rapidly decreasing 

 in size. A century or perhaps more ago, the lake must 

 have been twelve or fifteen miles longer, and consider- 

 ably broader opposite Mbakovia, than it is now. With 

 the wearing away of the reefs obstructing the Nile below 

 Wadelai, the lake has rapidly receded, and is still doing 

 so, to the astonishment of Emin Pasha, who first saw 

 Lake Albert seven or eight years ago. It is to be hoped 

 that Mr. Stanley will find time further to investigate this 

 subject, as well as to explore the country between the 

 Albert Nyanza and Muta Nzige, settle the position and 

 outline of the latter, and ascertain precisely to what 

 river system it belongs. 



The'abruptness with which the forest comes to an end 

 and the rich grass lands begin, about eighty miles from 

 Albert Nyanza, is another point deserving special atten- 

 tion, and can only be explained when we have accurate 

 observations of the rainfall and other conditions that go- 

 to form climate. 



Such are some of the more important geographical 

 results of Mr. Stanley's expedition, so far as we can- 

 gather from his preliminary letters ; others may be 

 derived from the map which accompanies his papers. 

 More will no doubt follow. It is to be hoped that the 

 rumour of Emin's return is not true, or at least that if he is 

 coming to Europe he has left his province in efficient 

 hands. In the interests of science as well as of humanity, 

 it is important that the province which Emin has held so 

 long may not bs allowed to relapse into barb.irism. 



J. S. K. 



A NEW PERMIAN RHYNCHOCEPHALIAN 

 REPllEE} 



AMONG the many publications which have recently 

 startled the pateontological world, one of the most 

 important is unquestionably Dr. Hermann Credner's 

 description of Palceohatteria^ a new Permian Rhyncho- 

 cephalianfrom the Plauen beds near Dresden — beds which 

 have supplied the same author with copious material of 

 Stegocephalians, both in the perfect and larval stages, the 

 subject of his well-known admirable monographs. Great 

 interest attaches to the present discovery from a purely 

 zoological point of view, owing to the close relationship of 

 this, one of the earliest of Reptiles, to the existing N ew 

 Zealand Sphenodon (or Hattcria), the anatomy of which 

 was first made known some twenty years ago by Dr. 

 Giinther in his classical paper in the Philosophical Trans- 



' H. Credner, " Die Stegocephalen und Faurier aus dem RothI.egenden 

 des Plauenschen Grundes bei Dresden," vii. Theil. PaUeohatteria tongi- 

 caudata {Zeitsckr. Deutsch. Geol. Ccs., 1888, pp. 457-557, PI- xxiv.-xxvi.). 



