Appendix A. 



Dr. Heiiiiich Kiepert also appeals to accept the same view where he writes 

 ill his Tiviitis)' (III Ancifiit (f'/vi/riijihi/ : " The expression ' lilue Mountains 

 (Jihel gomr), given liy the Arabs to those great mountain masses (Kenia, 

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

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

 and thus gave rise to the translation 26\i)i'//v !./,<,•.■ which is given on Ptolemy's 

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

 have banished fi'om our maps and from our books." (■') " The strange name of 

 Mountains of the Moon," says Prof. Alfred Kirchhofl", " is due probably to an 

 interchange of two Arab terms or to the twofohl meaning of one and the same 

 term." (*) And, in fact, the Arab writer el-Nowairi, quoted by Masudi, asserts 

 that Kamar (read Qamar) means both modii and irliih'. And in this connection 

 it will not be beside the question to note that Aristotle had already placed the 

 sources of the Nile in a ' Silver Mountain ' {'Aftyvpeo^ opof). {^) This Silver 

 Moimtain has a striking analogy with the White ^lountain of the mediifval 

 Arab writers, an analogy which suggests some important and sensible reflections 

 to Vivien de Saint-Martin. ('') 



If the mention of the Mountains of the .Moon, or else of the \\'hite 

 Mountains (?) is of Arab origin, which, liesides the stated reasons, might also be 

 shown to be probal)le from the fact that no allusion to that lofty range is made 

 in the edition of Ptolemy's Geography issued by Donis in 14)^2, (") the latitude 

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

 with the position assigned by the Alexandrian Geographer to the two lakes, 

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

 from the seventh chapter of Book IV : — 



The western lake has latitude (south) 6' and longitude ")7' : the eastern is 

 at latitude (south) 7 and longitude 65 . The rivers issuing from these two 

 lakes unite at north latitude 2" and under the 60th meridian, and they thus 

 form the chief branch of the Nile, which at north latitude 2 and under the 

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

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



It is quite vmderstood that the Ptolemaic data referring to geographical 

 features are not to be taken literally. The number of astronomic observations 

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

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

 To accomplish the gigantic woik that he had undertaken, no better means 

 occurred to the Geographer than that of reducing to astronomic data the 

 elements — distances and directions — derived from the itineraries both by land 

 and water, or ali-eady known from previous works, amongst which, first and 



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