240 
observed among meteorites. Besides this, it is asserted 
that the iron resembling that found at Caille, and the stone 
resembling that of Sétif, have been mutually connected by 
stratification upon an unknown globe, and it is. the first 
time that such a connection has been materially demon- 
strated. 
M. Meunier remarks that the meteorites which now arrive 
upon the earth are not of the same mineralogical nature as 
those which fell in past ages. Formerly iron fell ; nowstones 
fall. During the last 118 years there have been in Europe 
but three falls of iron, whereas there have been, annually, 
on an average, three falls of stones. The greater number 
of meteoric irons, which exist in the Paris collection, have 
fallen on the earth at undetermined epochs; all the 
meteoric stones are of comparatively recent date. Perhaps 
we are even justified in saying that stones of a new kind 
are beginning to arrive, for falls of carbonaceous meteorites 
were unknown before the year 1803, and four have been 
observed since then. 
From this assemblage of facts, M. Stanislas Meunier 
concludes that meteorites are the fragments of one or 
more heavenly bodies which, at a period relatively recent 
(for these waifs are never found except in superficial 
strata), revolved round the earth, or perhaps round the 
moon. Having, in the course of ages, lost their own 
proper heat and become penetrated by the cold of space, 
they have arrived, much sooner than the moon, by reason 
of their inferior volume, at the last term of the molecular 
actions which are operating upon our satellite, and which 
are rendered evident to our eyes by the enormous crevices, 
the deep fissures with which it is furrowed. Split in all 
directions, they have fallen to ruin, and their fragments, 
remaining scattered along the orbit, so as to form a circle 
more or less complete, have at the same time become 
arranged, according to their density, in zones concentric 
with the focus of attraction towards which they are 
constantly impelled by the resistance of the ethereal 
medium through which they move. The masses nearest 
to the centre, and which were principally composed of 
iron, were the first to fall ; afterwards came the stones, in 
which period we now are. Hereafter, perhaps, will arrive 
meteorites analogous to our crystallised formations, and 
perhaps even to our stratified beds. 
Thus meteorites, the veritable products of demolition, 
represent, according to M. Meunier, the last period of the 
evolution of planetary bodies. The incandescent orb, the 
sun, figures at the present day in our system as the sole 
representative of the primitive state through whichthe earth, 
and all the other bodies which revolve around it, have 
passed ; the moon representing the future which awaits the 
terrestrial sphere, now. in all the plenitude of life ; and, 
finally, meteorites show us what becomes of the dead 
stars, how they are decomposed, ahd how their materials 
return into the vortex of life. 
LEDLLERS LORE, EDITOR. 
[The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions expressei 
by his. Correspondents. No notice is taken of anonymous 
communications. | 
Dr. Livingstone’s Explorations. 
Tr certainly is to be regretted that the information received 
from Dr. Livingstone should be so imperfect. Still, though in- 
sufficient in itself, perhaps, to warrant our arriving at any positive 
conclusion respecting his claim to have discovered the chief 
sources of the Nile, the information furnished by him affords 
material aid towards the solution of that great problem of 
African geography, and is generally of much greater value, in my 
estimation, than it would appear to be in that of your learned 
correspondent ‘* F°.R.G.S.” 
Before adyerting to the main subject, I desire to point out, in 
the first place, that Dr. Livingstone has definitively settled that the 
Chambeze—the New Zambesi of some of our maps—is not an 
affluent of the well-known river Zambesi, which flows eastward 
NATURE 
[ Dec. 30, 1869 
into the Indian Ocean, but is a distinct stream, of which the 
course is to the west and north-west. On this point it is due to 
Mr. Cooley to say, that, although he was mistaken respecting the 
upper course of the Zambesi itself, he has long contended for the 
separate existence of the ‘‘ New Zambesi,” or Chambeze. 
Secondly, Dr. Livingstone has ascertained that the Chambeze, 
in its lower course beyond the capital of the Cazembe, is joined by 
another large river, the Lufira, coming from the south and south- 
west, which drains the western side of the country south of © 
Tanganyika, as the Chambeze drains the east side. The Lufira 
was not seen by the traveller; but when he was at some place, 
not named by him, in 11” S. lat., that river was pointed out to 
him as being at some distance west of that spot, and was de- 
scribed as being so large there as always to require canoes ; for 
so I read his words :—‘I have not seen the Lufira, but, pointed 
out west of 11° S., it is there asserted always to requite canoes ;” 
—which shows that it must come from a considerable distance 
south of that parallel. 
In the next place, Dr. Livingstone informs us that the Cham- 
beze enters Lake Bangweolo, and then changes ils name to 
Luapula ; that this river flowing north enters Moero Lake, and 
“on leaving Moero at its northern end bya rent in the mountains 
of Rua it takes the name of Lualaba, and passing on N.N.W. 
forms Ulenge in the country west of Tanganyika.” ‘This, it 
must be remarked, is not native information, but the result of 
the traveller’s own personal observation on the spot. His letters 
are dated ‘‘near Lake Bangweolo;” and inspeaking of the Lua- — 
> > 
laba he says, ‘‘I have seen it only where it leaves Moero, 
and where it comes out of the crack in the mountains of Rua.” 
To make it more certain that he is speaking of the Lua/ada, 
and not of the Luafzda, the traveller expresses his intention ‘‘ to 
follow down the Lua/aéa and see whether, as the natives assert, 
it passes Tanganyika to the west, or enters it and finds an exit by 
the river called Locunda [or Loanda] into Lake Chowambe ;” 
which lake, he says, ‘*I conjecture to be that discovered by Mr. 
Baker ;”—adding, ‘‘I shall not follow Lua/ada by canoes,” &c, 
Nothing could well be more explicit than this. And yet your 
correspondent represents Dr, Livingstone as saying that ‘*‘ he saw 
the Luage/a only at this gap in the mountains,” and describes 
the Lua/asa as being a month’s journey further west, and as 
falling into the Lulua and so joining the Zaire, or great river of 
Congo, on the west coast of Africa. There must clearly be 
some mistake here. , 
I think, too, there must be some misapprehension respecting 
‘the great salt marshes, which chiefly supply the interior of 
Africa,” described by ‘‘ F.R.G.S.” as situated on the banks of the 
Lualaba, a great running stream of fresh water. 
likely that those salt marshes lie in some extensive depression in 
the interior of the continent, having no outlet, but in which the 
rivers that may flow into it are absorbed and lost ? ‘ 
Further, according to Dr. Livingstone, the Lualaba, after leav- 
ing Moero beyond the town of the Cazembe to the north, forms 
Ulenge, either a lake with many islands or a division into several 
branches, which are taken up by the Lufira. ‘This I understand 
to mean, that the junction of the Lualaba and the Lufira is in 
Ulenge, worth of the Cazembe’s residence. ‘‘ F.R.G,S.” says, 
on the contrary, that the Lufira “ flows into the Luapula from the 
west about 100 miles S. W., or S.S.W., from the Cazembe.” How 
are these two statements to be reconciled ? 
Then “F.R.G,S.” says, ‘* When our author speaks of the 
Luviri (Lufira) entering ‘Tanganyika at Uvira, he evidently. casts 
the dimly discerned views of the natives into his own precon- 
ceived mould, and clothes them in his own language.” 
Livingstone could scarcely have lad any *‘ preconceived ” notions 
on the subject, unless he took with him Mr, Cooley’s map of 1852, 
in which the Chambeze, under the name of the New Zambesi, is 
Is it not more” 
But Dr. © 
laid down as joining the Luviri and then, under the name of_ 
Luapula, falling into the lake of ‘‘Zangafiika ” on its west 
side in about 8° S. lat. And this opinion Mr. Cooley would seem 
to regard still as the correct one; for ina letter which appeared 
in the Daily Telegraph of the 27th August last, with his initials 
“W.D.C.,” heexpressly states that ‘*the drainage of the Cazembe’s 
country is all into the Nyanza on the east.” Though why this 
name should be applied to the Lake of Tanganyika is not patent. 
We know the ‘* Victoria Nyanza” of Speke, the ‘Albert Nyanza” 
of Baker, the ‘‘ Lake Tanganyika” of Burton, and the ‘‘ Lake 
Nyassa” of Livingstone. We also know that in Mr. Cooley’s 
maps of 1845 and 1852, Tanganyika and the more southerly 
Lake Nyassa are made to form one continuous bedy of water 
under the name of ‘‘ Nyassa, or the Sea.” But the present 
