GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 343 



near the mouth of the river, the height of seven feet; with- 

 out the velocity having much, if at all encreased ; and 

 without a single shower having fallen that deserves to be 

 noticed. The little difference between the rise of seven 

 feet, which then took place in the dry season, while the 

 sun was still to the nortjiward of the line, and that of eleven 

 feet in the wet season, during which the sun is twice verti- 

 cal, affords a solid argument for its northern origin ; and, 

 when coupled with the particular moment at which it was 

 first observed to rise, would seem to establish the fact, 

 ahnost beyond a doubt, that one branch of the river, as 

 was stated by tlie natives, must descend from some part 

 of Africa to the northward of the Equator. 



We find in Captain Tuckey's notes, after having ob- 

 served the progressive rise of the river, the insertion of two 

 words as a memorandum, " hypothesis confirmed." This 

 hypothesis had previously been stated among the last notes 

 of his Journal, which he did not live to reduce into a regu- 

 lar narrative, under these words; " extraordinary quiet 

 rise of the river shows it to issue from some lake, which 

 had received almost the whole of its water from the north 

 of the line." But in a private letter written from Yellala, 

 and brought home in the Congo, he dwells more particular- 

 ly on this hypothesis; " combining" he says " my observa- 

 tions with the information I have been able to collect from 

 the natives, vague and trifling as it is, 1 cannot help think- 

 ing that the Zaire will be found to issue from some larae 

 lake, or chain of lakes, considerably to the northward of 

 the line ;" and he contends that, so far from the low state 



