444 



NA TURE 



[Makcii 7, 1895 



than the eastern. " If the orbir had remained unchanged from 

 1877, ihe western distance in 1894 should have been about T 'S 

 greater than the eastern. The change of ne.irly 2"'S was 

 evidence ol a marked transformation of the oibit during the 

 years 1S77-94. The line of apsides has probably revolved 

 owing 10 a polar compression of the planet." The observa- 

 tions also appear to indicate a similar transformation of the 

 orbit of Deimos, but the evidence is not quite so conclusive. 



Both satellites are about 6 minutes behind Marth's etihemeris, 

 so that the adopted values of their periodic times require slight 

 <orTeclion. 



Eclipse OF thi: Moon, March ii.— The following par- 

 ticulars with regard to the total eclipse of the moon on the 

 momiDg of Monday, March 1 1, may be of interest : — 



G. M. T. 

 h. m. 



First contact with penumbra o 58'4 



,, ,, shadow I 5r9 



Beginning of total phase ... ... ■■. 2 51 8 



Middle „ „ 3 392 



End „ ,, 4 2' 6 



Last contact with shadow 5 243 



,, ,, penumbra ... ... ... 6 20 o 



The first contact with the shadow will occur at 127' from Ihe 

 north piinl of the moon's limb towards the east, and the last 

 contact at 69° towards the west, in both cases for the direct 

 image as seen with the naked eye. The magnitude of the 

 eclipse (moon's diameter = unity) will be I "619. 



The moon will be seen in the shadow at places between 

 longitudes 5h. E. and I2h. W. Among the principal stars 

 occulted during the eclipse will be 83 Leonis. mag. 7 5, which 

 will disappear at 2h. 17m. at an angle of 95° and reappear at 

 3h. 12m. at an angle of 33S' ; and - Leonis, mag. 5'0, which 

 will disappear at 2h. 56111. at 86°, and reappear at 3h. 43m. at 

 an angle of 345° ; the angles being reckoned from north 

 towards east. 



THE NILE} 



T AM to speak to you to-night of the Nile, and I think I may 

 ■*■ fairly say it is the most famous river in all the world 

 famous through all Ihe ages, for the civilisation that has existed 

 on its banks : famous for its mystic fabulous rise, about which 

 so many sages and philosophers have pindered ; f.imous for its 

 length, traversing one-fifth the distance from pole to pole; 

 famous, and app.irenlly destined to be famous, for the political 

 combinations that ever centres around it. But I feel 1 must 

 begin by an apology, for now that Egypt has come so com- 

 pletely within the tourist's range, probably many of my hearers 

 have seen more of the Nile than 1 have. 



n a foreigner were to lecture to his countrymen about the 

 river Thames, and were to begin by informing them that he had 

 never been above Greenwich, he might be looked ui)on as an 

 impostor ; and perhaps I am not much better, for I have never 

 been higher up the river than PhilK, 610 miles above Cairo. 

 For information regarding anything higher up, I must go, like 

 you, to the works of Speke, Baker, Stanley, ami our other 

 great explorers. I shall not, then, detain you to-night with any 

 elaborate account of 'his upper portion of the river, but will 

 only remind you briefly of that great inland sea, the Victoria 

 Nyanii, in extent only a little less than the American Lake 

 Superior, traversed by the equator, and fed by many rivers, 

 some of ihem taking their rise as far as 5 .S. lat. These rivers 

 form the true source of the Nile, Ihe mystery only solved in the 

 present generation. 



The outlet ol this great Ltke is on its north shore, where 

 Ihe river rushes over the Kipon Falls, estimated by Speke 

 at only 400 or 500 feet wide, and with a drop of 12 

 feet. Thence the river's course is in a north-west direc- 

 tion for 270 miles, lo where it thunders over the Murchison 

 Kails, a cliff of 120 feet high. Soon after that it joins 

 Ihe northern end of Baker's Lake, the Albert Nyanza, but 

 only lo leave it again, and to pursue its course through a 

 grcal marshy land lor more than 600 miles, lo where the Bahr 

 4,azelle joint it from the wot ; a little furtlicrdown the great 

 Saubat tributary comes in on the east. This is the region in 



' A l«cti]r« delivered »l the Royal Intlilution, on January 35, by Sir Colin 

 Scott. MoncriefT. 



which the river is obstructed by islands of f1.\itipg vegetation, 

 which, if checked in their course, at last block up its whole 

 width, and form solid obstructions known as saiiJs, substantial 

 enough to be used as bridges, and obstacles, of course, to navi- 

 gation, until they are cleared away. The waters of the Saubat 

 are of veiy light colour, anil tinge the whole river, which, above 

 lis junction, is green and unwholesome, from thr lori^ chain of 

 marshes which it traverses. Hence it is called the \\ tiiie Nile. 

 600 miles further brings us to Kh.ii oum, where the Blue Nile 

 irom the Abyssinian mountains joins it, and at 200 miles still 

 further to the north it is joined by the .\tbara river, also from 

 Abyssinia, a torrent ra'her than a river. 



Baker gives a gtaphc account ol how he was encamped by the 

 dry bed of the Ath.ira on June 22, 1861. T^e hea' was intense, 

 thecountry was parched with drought. Duiing the night the cry 

 went forth that the floods were coming, and in ihe morning he 

 found himself on the banks of a river, he says, 500 yards vsideand 

 from 15 to 20 feet deep. All nature h.id sprung into life. A 

 lit'le north of the ju' ction of the .A. bara is iterber, whence you 

 will remember is the short C"t to Snakin in the Ked Sea, which 

 so many thought wonl I have been the tr' e route for our Army 

 to lake in relieving Cordon. From Khartonm to Assouan is a 

 distance of 1 100 miles of river, dnring whiih it makes two 

 immense curves, for on a straight line the distance is not hall so 

 much, and it is in this pan of its course that i p.T-srs over the 

 six great >atar.icts 01 rapids which I. lock all ordinary navigation. 

 The first or furthest norih cataract is just above Assouan, a 

 dis ame of 750 miles from the Medite>rane.in, through the 

 country known as Egypt. From the junction of tt'e A' bara to 

 its mouth in the Meditenanean, a distance .f 16S0 miles, the 

 Nile receives no tributary. On the contrary, duri g every mile 

 of i s course its waters are diminished I'y evap'^ration, by 

 absorpti n, and by irrigaion. The riv.r gns less and less as 

 it flows Ihrouiih this rainless land, and its mavimum volume is 

 to be found during the flo ids at the junction of the A'bara, and 

 at other seasons at Khartoum, 1875 miles from the Mediter- 

 ranean. 



The whole His'ance by river from the Victoria Nyania to 

 the sea is about 3500 miles. It may not be easy to derive 

 any clear impressiim from this hare recital of mileage. Let me 

 try to convey to you in some other wa>s the idea ol the length 

 ol the Nile. Standing on the bridge at Cairo, I used to reflect 

 that I was just about half-way between the source of the Nile 

 and the While Sea. Or 10 put it another way : if we could 

 suppose a river crossing our English Channel, a-d that Ihe I 

 Thames should find its outlet in the ICuphrates and the Persian | 

 Gulf, that river would be about as long as the Nile. 1 



In this short sketch of the course of the Nile, I must not j 

 forget to mention one inieresiing feature. About 40 miles 

 south of Cairo, the low Libyan chain of hills which bounds the 

 Nile valley on the west is broken by a gap, through which the ' 

 waters of the river can flow, and beyond this gap lies a saucer 

 shaped depression called the Fa) urn, of abiut 400 square mile 

 in area, sloping down to a lake of considera'ile size, the surfan 

 of whose waters stands about 13J feet below that of the sea. 

 This lake is known as the Birket el Kurim. 



From Ihe lime of the earliest Egyptian records, this province 

 of the Fayiim was famed for its fertility, and lo Ihe Kgyptiar. 

 taste for its delighiful climate. Many of the most prcciou 

 monuments of antiquity have been found in the Fa)iiiD. Tl- 

 famous Labyrinth is supposed to have stood just at its entrance 

 and what has excited most interest lor the engineer in all 

 times, it is here that Herodotus places that wonderful lake 

 MiL'is, which receiving for half the year the surplus supply of | 

 the Nile, rendered it back again in irrigation to Lower Egyptl 

 during the other half. Where this lake actually was, has 

 excited discussion since any attention has been paid to ancient I 

 Egyptian history. It seems preily clear that in earlier day- 

 the iiiket el Kuriin was of much greater proportions than it i 

 now, but how it cvrr could h.Tve been large enough lo allow 

 of its waters fl .wing back into Ihe Nile valley when the rivet 

 was low, wiilioul at the same lime drowning the whole Fayuni. 

 is not very clear. 



Now, what are Ihe functions of a great river, what arc tli( 

 offices which it renders lo man? And first of all, M least ir 

 this latitude, we would mention the carrying off to the oceat 

 I of the surplus waier that descends from the skies. Nobly doc 

 Ihe Nile fulfil this duly; but with this enormous qualificalinn 

 that it transports the water from tracts where there is too much 

 and carries it all free of cost, not to waste it in the sea, but I' 



NO. 1323, VOL. 51] 



