46 



NA TURE 



[November io, 1892 



west shore of the Albert Lake. Marching from near Masaka, 

 the capital of Buddu, he traversed Northern Ankole, a district 

 hitherto unvisited by any European, though Mr. Stanley, in 

 1876, had travelled parallel to it within the boundaries of 

 Uganda, and reaching the borders of Kitagwenda, proceeded 

 south-west to the narrow channel or river which connects the 

 upper lake of Rusango with the main waters of the Albert 

 Edward Lake. Crossing this narrow channel (at most 500 

 yards wide) the force camped in the hostile country of the Wasura, 

 a tribe subject to Kabarega of Unyoro, and identified with the 

 Wanyora. Here they crossed Mr. Stanley's route at the Salt 

 Lake ; but since his book nor maps had not then reached 

 Central Africa the journey was in the nature of entirely new ex- 

 ploration, though of course the discovery of the Albert Edward 

 Lake and of Ruwenzori had been anticipated. The natives, too, 

 being hostile, no one was met with who had seen Mr, Stanley, 

 or could give information of his route, or tell of his exploits. 

 On the route to the Albert Lake many deep and almost 

 symmetrically circular depressions like the crater of a volcano, 

 or a dried-up pond, were passed. A few of these, as shown on 

 the map, were tiny lakes no bigger than a mill-pond, but appa- 

 rently of great depth, with clear blue water, and all the charac- 

 teristics of a lake. The alligator and great fish eagle haunted 

 their waters. Others, again, were dry, the bottoms being per- 

 haps 100 feet or more below the level of the surrounding 

 country, which is about 4200 feet above the sea. 



The Lake Albert Edward consists of two portions, the 

 Mwutan-zige (Barrier to Locusts), or the Great Lake and the 

 Rusango on the north-east. This latter is in reality a separate 

 lake, connected with Mwutan-zige by a river. Its general 

 direction is north-west and south-east. There is no swamp 

 around it except at the north-west end, where dense jungle 

 and impenetrable marsh afford a home for great herds of ele- 

 phant. It is at this point that the rivers \Vami and Mpanga, 

 into which the countless streams from Ruwenzori flow, bring 

 their waters to the lake. The gorge through which the latter 

 flows is picturesque in the extreme, especially in the rains. 

 The great body of water confined between its rocky walls 

 boils and eddies over the sunken rocks below. The gorge 

 is some 700 feet deep, and is full of tropical forest. The 

 orchids, ferns, and mosses which are found in such a natural 

 forcing-house, where the damp vapours hang, are extremely 

 luxuriant. 



Captain Lugard followed the eastern base of the Ruwenzori 

 Mountain, crossing the endless streams which descend from its 

 perpetual snows, and bear their clear, sparkling, icy-cold water 

 to the Wami and Mpanga, and so to the Albert Edward. The 

 drainage of the eastern Ruwenzori is not towards the Albert and 

 so to the Nile, but to the southern lake, from which the only 

 overflow is the Semliki, a river which at its exit probably con- 

 veys a lesser volume of water from the Lake than is contributed 

 to it by the Mpanga alone. The ground rises gradually from 

 the level of the Albert Edward 3300 feet to some 5300 feet at 

 Kiaya. Here the route descends into the head of a narrow 

 valley, while the plateau trends away to the right, and forms the 

 uplands of Unyoro, its bold outline appearing from the Semliki 

 Valley and the Albert Lake like a lofty range of hills. The 

 valley of Kiaya is extremely fertile, intersected with streams, 

 and studded with banana groves and cultivated land. Between the 

 edge of the plateau on the east and the base of Ruwenzori there 

 is a deep trough, or gorge, the hills rising steep as it were from 

 their own foundations without connection with the plateau, 

 which reaches to their very feet. Leaving Kiaya, they passed 

 through a wild country of quartz and scrub jungle, cut at right- 

 angles by gigantic ravines of rich soil, in which are villages, 

 forest, and cultivation. This led to the edge of a lower plateau, 

 overlooking the Semliki valley. Simultaneously the massive 

 ■ peaks of Ruwenzori sloped down to lesser hills, and mingled 

 with the plain, and a new range of mountains, increasing in 

 height from south to north, appeared opposite. Mountains 

 they appear, but, like those left behind, they are really the 

 escarpment of the plateaus on which the sources of the Ituri, 

 and the other great aflluents of the Congo, take their rise ; 

 which, for convenience, may be called the Kavalli plateau. 

 From Kavalli's Captain Lugard escorted 8000 Soudanese troops, 

 who had by their vacillation retarded the departure of Stanley 

 with Emin for the coast. Some of these he settled in forts to 

 protect Uganda from Kabrega's raiders, while others were sent 

 back to Egypt by Mombasa. 



NO. 1202, VOL. 47] 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS. 

 American Meteorological Jotirnal, October.— A meteoro- 

 logical balloon ascent at Berlin by A. L..Rotch. The ascent 

 was made on the morning of October 24, 1891, and at the same 

 time a captive balloon was sent up to 600 metres. The weather 

 was hazy up to about icioo feet, but above that the sky was 

 nearly clear. The mean decrease of temperature between the 

 ground and the captive balloon was o°6 C. per 100 metres. In 

 the stratum of air between the captive and free balloon (700 to 

 1000 metres) the decrease was much slower during the morn- 

 ing, there being at first an increase, the temperature at 693 

 metres was 10° C., and at 858 metres io°*4. In the afternoon 

 the rate of decrease in the upper stratum became nearly the 

 same as that which prevailed in the lower stratum during the 

 morning. — Improvement of weather forecasts, by Prof. H. A. 

 Ilazen. The author recommends the study of moisture con- 

 ditions at various heights in the atmosphere, and considers that 

 the greatest hope of improvement is in the observation of atmO 

 spheric electricity. — The storms of India, by S. M. Ballou. The 

 storms are divided into three classes : (i) the cyclones that 

 occur a;t the changes of the monsoons ; (2) the storms of the 

 summer rains ; (3) the winter rains of the northern provinces ; 

 he discusses the causes of their formation, and gives a brief de- 

 scription of each of these classes.— The ether and its relation to 

 the aurora, by E, A. Beals. The author gives a brief summary 

 of some of the facts respecting our knowledge of auroras, in 

 view of their probable maximum during the coming year in 

 connection with their correlation with frequency of sunspots. — 

 There are also short articles on warm and cold seasons, by H. 

 Gawthrop ; facts about rain-making, by G. E. Curtis ; and 

 convectional whirls, by Prof. H. A. Hazen. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



London. 

 Anthropological Institute, OctoSer 18.— A special meet- 

 ing was held, the president, Edward B. Tylor, D.C.L., 

 F.R.S., in the chair, to receive a communication from Major 

 R. C. Temple, I.S.C, on "Developments in Buddhist Archi- 

 tecture and Symbolism as illustrated by the Author's Recent 

 Exploration of Caves in Burma." Major Temple commen- 

 ced by saying that the object of the paper was chiefly to draw 

 attention to the extraordinarily rich and for the present practically 

 untouched field for the ethnographist and antiquary existing in 

 Burma. He exhibited some photographs of life-size figures in 

 wood, carved by a well-known artist of Maulmain, of the " four 

 sights" shown to Buddha as Prince Siddhartha on his first visits 

 to the outer world, viz.., the old man, the sick man, the dead 

 man, and the priest ; and also some admirable gilt wooden 

 representations from Rangoon of Buddha in his standing and 

 recumbent postures, with his begging bowl, and seated as King 

 Jambupati, surrounded by priests and other worshippers. He 

 next showed a remarkable set of gilt wooden images from the 

 platform of the great Shwedagon pagoda at Rangoon, of nats, 

 belus, hanuman myattks, and other spirits believed in by the 

 Burmese, seated on the steps of a lofty tagon-dain, or post, on 

 the top of which is always perched the figure of the hentha 

 (hansu), or sacred goose, which apparently protects pagodas in 

 some way. From these he passed on to four representations of 

 large glazed bricks or tiles from Pegu. These curious, and (so 

 far as English museums are concerned) probably unique an- 

 tiquities may be presumed to be at least 400 years old, and 

 formed at one time the ornamentation of the three procession 

 paths round a now completely ruined pagoda. They represent 

 the march, battle, and flight of some foreign army, represented 

 in true Indian fashion with elephant, monkey, and other animal 

 faces. Some of the figures are clad in Siamese and Cambodian 

 fashion. The glazing is remarkably good, and Indian influence 

 is clear in their construction. They may probably represent a 

 scene from the Ramaya>ia, which in a mutilated form is well 

 known to Burmese mythology. These were followed by a huge 

 figure of Buddha from Pegu, in his recumbent attitude, which 

 may be referred to King Dhammacheti, who flourished in the 

 fifteenth century. This image is 181 feet long and 46 feet high 

 at the shoulder. It is built of brick, and is well proportioned 

 throughout. Its history is lost, and so was the image itself until 

 18S1. Pegu was utterly destroyed about 1760 by the Burmese, 



