A])penclix A. 



Dr. Heimith Kiepert also appears to accept the same view where he writes 

 ill his Trentine on Ancient Geogroph}/ : " The expression ' Bhie Mountains 

 (.ni)el gomr), given by the Arabs to those great mountain masses (Kenia, 

 Kilimanjaro and others), seen only from afar, and indistinctly, has long l)een 

 wrongly interpreted in the sense of ' Mountains of the Moon ' (Jibel-el-Qamar), 

 and thus gave rise to the translation SeXj/i'i/v ofwi which is given on Ptolemy's 

 map, and to an error which the recent explorations in that region of Africa 

 have l»anished from our maps and from our books." (^) " The strange name of 

 Mountains of tlie Moon,"' says I'rof. Alfred Kirchhoft", "is due proliably to an 

 interchange of two Aral> teinis or to the twofold meaning of one and the same 

 term." (■*) And, in fact, the Arab writer el-No\vairi, quoted by Masudi, asserts 

 that Kamar (I'ead tramai') means Itotli iinxui and ir/iifr. And in this coiniectioii 

 it will not 1)6 beside the (|uestion to note that Aristotle had already placed the 

 .sources of the Nile in a ' Silver Mountain ' {'Af/yvpeof o/wt). (') This Silver 

 Mountain has a striking analogy with the White Mountain of the medieval 

 Arab writers, an analogy which suggests some important and sensil)le reflections 

 to Vivien de Saint-Martin. ('') 



If the mention of the Mountains of the Moon, or else <jf the ^\ hite 

 Mountains (?) is of Aral» origin, which, besides the stated reasons, might also be 

 shown to be prol)able fi'om the fact that no allusion to that lofty range is made 

 in the edition of Ptolemy's (Geography issued by Donis in 14S2, (") the latitude 

 12 30' S. would have been inserted in the text to bring it into accord 

 with the position assigned by the Alexandrian Geographei' to the two lakes, 

 sources of the Nile. And respecting these lakes, heie is what we gather 

 from the seventh chapter of Rook IV : — 



The western lake has latitude (south) (> and longitude ~u' ; the eastern is 

 at latitude (south) 7 and longitude 6-"). The I'ivers issuing fi'om these two 

 lakes ujiite at north latitude 2 and luider the 60th meridian, and they thus 

 form the chief lii'anch of the Nile, which at noith latitude 2 and umlcr the 

 61st meridian receives the Kiver Astapus, emissary from Lake Coloe, wliich lies 

 on the equinoxial line and under the 69th degree of longitude. 



It is quite understood that the Ptolemaic data referring to geographical 

 features are not to l)e taken litcially. The niuidier of astronomic observations 

 at the command of Ptolemy was very limited ; the results of those few oltserva- 

 tions, especially for the longitudes, were nearly all very fai' from the actual. 

 To accomplish the gigantic work that he had undeitaken, no better means 

 occurred to the (Geographer than that of i-educing to astronomic data the 

 elements- distances and diTcclions- derived from the itineraries both by land 

 and water, or already known from previous works, amongst which, first and 



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