Feb. 17, 1870] 
NAMOTEE 
405 
LEEDERS DO) THE EDITOR 
[The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions expressed 
by his Correspondents. No notice is taken of anonymous 
communications. | 
Scientific Queries 
May I venture to ask you, or one of your readers, for informa- 
tion on the following points :— 
1. What is Le Verrier’s Law of Storms? 
2. What the latest state of our knowledge regarding the 
peculiar changes undergone by the Mexican Axolotls during their 
metamorphoses ? Have changes, similar to those observed in 1866 
by Dumeril been noticed in the Zoological Gardens or elsewhere? 
Have any observations regarding generation in the so-called 
Pereniobranchiates been made on any other animals besides the 
Axolotl and the Siredon ? 
3. Where can I find any account of the earliest observations 
on the peculiar nesting arrangements of the Hornbills, as described 
by Wallace? I see that Captain Layard has sent a note on this 
subject to the Zoological Society, but I have no means of ascer- 
taining what he states. 
4. In a lecture published by Blanchard in the Revue des Cours 
Sctentifigues a few months ago, on the Progress of Natural His- 
tory in the Departments of France (excluding Paris), I see that 
a medal has been lately awarded to M. Lespes for his entomologi- 
cal researches. Are these recent researches, or are they those 
described several years ago by Mr. (now Sir John) Lubbock in 
the Natural History Review ? 
5. Is it not the general opinion of your readers that Sir John 
Lubbock would confer a great favour on those who possess the 
first edition of his Prehistoric Times, by publishing in the form of 
a pamphlet the chief additions which are introduced into his 
second edition ? 10s LS SE 
Haze and Dust 
Dr. TYNDALL, in his lecture upon Haze and Dust, says ‘‘ that 
if a physician wishes to hold back from the lungs of his patient, 
or from his own, the germs by which contagious disease is said 
to be propagated, he will employ a cotton-wool respirator ;” 
and, further on, “time will decide whether in lung diseases also 
the woollen respirators cannot abate irritation, if not arrest decay.” 
May I ask if there is any necessity for the unsightly respirators 
one sees over the mouths of people during the winter months 
and cold evenings? Has not Nature already provided us with 
an efficient one—one which, on experiment, will doubtless prove 
to be quite as trustworthy as the artificial one, without any of its in- 
conveniences? I refer to the hair-sieve with which the sinuosities 
of the nasal passages are supplied ; the hairs besetting its path 
freeing the indrawn air from contaminating particles of dust, whilst 
it is effectually warmed in its inward passage. 
That the air is thus filtered might, I think, be ocularly demon- 
strated by inhaling exclusively through the nostrils, and then 
expiring through the glass tube, when the floating matter will be 
found absent, having been arrested in the nose; I suggest this 
experiment, because, from the eminent professor applying a 
handful of wool to his mouth and xose, I infer that he did not 
give his natural respirator a fair chance of showing its capabi- 
lities. 
Apart from the use of respirators, ev passant, I may perhaps 
be allowed to echo the opinion of our best medical men in saying 
that the mouth is not ¢/e organ for respiration ; if it were, should 
we not find the olfactory nerves developed there also? By 
respiring through the mouth you do not properly exercise your 
sense of smell, you allow the hairs lining the nasal cavities to 
dwindle away and become suppressed through non-use, and 
finally, you clog up the minute tubercles of the lungs with all 
kinds of rotten matter. 
It is a well-known fact, that people who habitually breathe 
through the nose are less liable to infectious diseases and pulmo- 
nary complaints, one very common benefit derived by such who 
sleep with the mouth closed, is that they never awake with the 
painful and disagreeable sensation produced by a parched throat 
and cracked lips. This may be a small matter, but I think it is 
deserving of attention. When we break Nature’s laws we must 
pay the penalty. A.L. 
The Solution of the Nile Problem 
I HAVE read with much pleasure Mr. Keith Johnston’s 
remarks in your impression of the 27th ult. on the subject of 
Dr. Livingstone’s explorations, not only because they manifest 
an intimate acquaintance with the general physical features of 
the field of inquiry and a proper estimate of the merits of the 
question ; but because they help to establish the correctness of 
my opinion, that the Chambeze and its lakes belong to the Nile 
system, and not to that of the Congo. I have only to explain 
that, in my letter of December 1st (NATURE, No. 9), I did not 
“sive the opinion that the river which forms the main part of 
the great traveller’s latest discoveries is the head stream of the 
Nile,” but merely said that it “joins” it. 
On the question of levels your correspondent is substantially 
correct, and if he willlook to the ///ustrated Travels of the 1st 
inst., he will see how far Lagree with him. From Dr. Livingstone’s 
statements it appears that the general drainage level of the 
basin of the Chambeze does not exceed 3,000 feet ; and it is not 
improbable that in the passage of the waters northwards on the 
west side of Tanganyika, they fall two or even three hundred 
feet lower, so as to descend nearly if not entirely to the level of 
the Albert Nyanza. But even if this be the case, I fail to see 
how the difference in height, however small, “could not give a 
sufficient lowness to the latter lake (Albert Nyanza) to allow 
this river (Chambeze) to flow down to it through the five degrees of 
latitude which separate them.” The levels of the Lakes Liemba, 
Tanganyika, and Albert Nyanza—of which the first is in about 
Io’ S. lat. and the last has its northern end in about 3° N. lat.— 
are respectively c/vca 2,800, 2,844, and 2,720 feet; and as the 
continuity of these three bodies of water is assumed by Mr. Keith 
Johnston, it follows that there is here a virtual dead level ex- 
tending over not five, but ¢#z7teex degrees of latitude, or 780 
geographical miles! If then it is possible for the waters of Lake 
Liemba, the head of Livingstone’s ‘‘ eastern line of drainage,” 
to flow into the Albert Nyanza, it is equally possible for those 
of the Chambeze and its lakes, forming that traveller’s central 
line of drainage, to do so. 
In his last letter from Ujiji, Dr. Livingstone says that ‘‘ the 
western and central lines of drainage converge into an unvisited 
lake west or south-west of this” —that is to say, situated in the 
unexplored regions west of Tanganyika, in the north-north-west 
direction in which he saw the Lualaba (as he calls the lower 
course of the Chambeze) flowing, after it had emerged from the 
crack in the mountains of Rua, north of Lake Moero. This 
“unvisited lake” is evidently the Lake Chowambe of the 
traveller’s former communications, which by his now calling 
Baker’s Albert Nyanza by the name of ‘‘ Nyigi Chowambe,” he 
would seem to identify with it. But this is quite consistent with 
Baker’s own statement, that, to the south of about 1° 30’ S. lat., 
the Albert Nyanza ‘‘turns suddenly to the west, in which 
direction its extent is unknown.” 
** Albert Nyanza,” ‘‘ Nyigi Chowambe,” and this “ unvisited 
lake west or south-west of Ujiji,” are, therefore, one continuous 
body of water, which, being on the lowest level of all, must 
form not merely the ‘western line of drainage,” but the maiz 
drainage of the upper Nile Basin ; and as, on its eastern side, it 
is the recipient of the waters of the lakes Victoria Nyanza and 
Tanganyika, so, on its western side, it receives those of the 
great lake discovered by Signor Piaggia, with an elevation (as I 
believe) of four or five thousand feet. 
This is entirely in accordance with the opinion I have always 
entertained that the water-parting between the basin of the Nile 
and those of the rivers flowing into the Atlantic—the Ogowai 
the Kuango (Congo), the Kwanza, and the Kunene—is on about 
the twentieth meridian of east longitude, as it is, in fact, marked 
on my maps of “ The Basin of the Nile” of 1849, 1859, and 1864. 
The Mossamba range of mountains, situate to the east of the 
Portuguese colony of Benguela, on the west coast of Africa, 
forms the southern extremity of this water-parting, and_ it 
is in these mountains that I find the head of the great 
river, which with the Lufira forms Livingstone’s ‘‘ western line 
of drainage,” or, as it should be more correctly designated, the 
main stream of the Nile. This river is the Kasai, Kassavi, or 
Loke, whose sources are in the forests of Quibokoe or Kibokoe, 
on these Mossamba Mountains, within 300 miles of the Atlantic 
Ocean ; which river was crossed by Dr. Livingstone within 
160 or 170 miles of its head, on February 27th, 1854, in his 
adventurous journey across the African continent, and is described 
by him in page 332 of his ‘‘ Missionary Travels,’ and 
the lower course of which river was followed down by 
the Hungarian traveller, Ladislaus Magyar, in 1850, as far as 
about 6° 30'S. lat., where he heard that it flowed eastward into 
Lake ‘‘ Nhanja’—a_ statement strikingly in accordance with 
Mr. Cooley’s assertion, adyerted to in my former communica- 
