May 6, 1^09] 



NA TURE 



281 



and almost the only available for house-building- in 

 the deserts of the south-west — and the palo vcrclc 

 {Parkinsoiiia microphylla), which, according to soil 

 and water supply, varies from 3 feet to 15 feet in 

 height — these and the many other characteristic xero- 

 phytes become very real to us from Mr. Hornadav's 

 quite non-technicai descriptions and the photographs 

 taken by one or other of the party. 



The author is also a sportsman, and the text has 

 many interludes which will interest the sportsman 

 rather than the botanist; and it would be unfair not 

 to mention the numerous observations on animal-life, 

 especially the valuable chapter on the mountain sheep 

 of Mexico and the range of the 

 species. A. B. R. 



be seen, but gallant attempts were made to reach 

 them, as is duly recorded in Cav. De Filippi's narra- 

 tive. Most of the expeditions added materially to our 

 knowledge, and the repeated failures to achieve 

 complete success tempted the Duke of the Abruzzi to 

 undertake the exploration of Ruwenzori. He organ- 

 ised an expedition on a royal scale, judiciously selected 

 the most favourable time of year, and the easy route 

 by the Uganda Railway and steamer across the Vic- 

 toria Nyanza. He left Entebbe, the capital of 

 Uganda, on May 14, igo6, at the head of a caravan 

 of 400 men, including a distinguished scientific staff, 

 a company of Swiss guides and porters, and the great 



THE MOUNTAINS OF THE 

 MOON.^ 

 T7ASTERN equatorial Africa has 

 -'--' three mountain groups capped 

 by perpetual snow — Kilimanjaro, 

 Kenya, and Ruwenzori. Though 

 the last is the lowest, and was the 

 most recently discovered, it has 

 aroused the widest popular interest ; 

 for its discoverer, Stanley, with 

 characteristic insight, recognised it 

 as " the Mountain of the Moon," 

 the snows of which, according to 

 the well-known passage in 

 Ptolemy's "Geography," nourished 

 the sources of the Nile. Ptolemy's 

 general account of the Nile lakes 

 is sufficiently accurate to show that 

 he wrote from positive information. 

 Otherwise, as Signer De Filippi re- 

 marks, he must have been gifted 

 with prophetic insight. The state- 

 ment about the Mountain of the 

 Moon and its snows is, however, 

 probably only an Arab interpola- 

 tion ; that view, so plausij)lv ad- 

 vanced by Cooley in i8.<;4, is ac- 

 cepted as probable by Dr. Luigi 

 Hugues in an appendix to this 

 volume. Stanlev's identification of 

 Ruwenzori with Ptolemy's Moun- 

 tain of the Moon has been, of 

 course, called in question, but the 

 alternative theories are as emphati- 

 cally rejected in this work as in 

 most of its predecessors. 



Since the discovery of Ruwenzori 

 by Stanley, the mountain has been 

 repeatedly visited and partially ex- 

 plored. Stiihlmann passed along its 

 western side and took some fine 

 photographs of the snow-capped 

 peaks. Scott Elliot entered the range, saw some of 

 its glaciers, and discovered that they were formerly 

 more extensive. His observations and collections 

 showed that instead of Ruwenzori having been vol- 

 canic, as had been suggested from analogy with Kili- 

 manjaro and Kenya, it is a tilted block of Archean 

 rocks left upstanding between the Victoria Nyanza 

 basin and the rift valley of the Semliki. The later 

 e.^peditions that visited the mountain found it usually 

 shrouded in the clouds that had hidden it from 

 Stanley's predecessor. Baker. The peaks could seldom 



1 "Ruwenzori: an Account of the Expedition of H.R.H. Prince Luigi 

 Amedeoof Savoy, Duke of the Abruzzi." By F. de Filippi. Pp. xvi+408 ; 

 illustrations, plates, 5 maps. With a preface by H.R.H. ihe Duke of the 

 Abruzzi. (London : A. Constable and Co., Ltd., 1908.) Price 31^. 6d. net. 



NO. 2062, VOL. 80] 



t Spek 



mountain photographer, Sella. .Aided by the British 

 officials, to whom warm thanks are expressed in the 

 book, the Duke of the Abruzzi soon reached the eastern 

 foot of the mountains, and established a light camp 

 near the head of the valley, up which most of his 

 predecessors had climbed to the Alpine regions of 

 Ruwenzori. The expedition had been carefully 

 equipped, and its resources were handled with the 

 Duke's usual energy and courage. He overcame all 

 obstacles, climbed ail five of the ice-capped mountains, 

 and most of the chief peaks; and his expedition re- 

 turned with a series of mountain photographs un- 

 rivalled in .\frican literature, a geological map of the 

 main part of Ruwenzori, and detailed information as 

 to its geography. 



