628 REPORT—1904, 
7. It is worth while to notice that, although compression occurs where the 
two systems meet and the distance assigned to Ancyra from Tavium is not two- 
thirds of what it ought to be, Tavium is approximately the ‘right’ distance from 
Medzeum, and the road from Tavium to Ancyra is represented with exaggerated 
windings on the map. A similar phenomenon is to be noticed on the road between 
Cyzicus and Nicza, and is due again to local compression, The whole western 
coast line has been pulled in towards the east in order to suit the excessive dis- 
tance between north and south. 
8. Positions once fixed as suggested above would be used similarly to fix 
other road-centres, The details of the map would then be filled in as consistently 
as possible with the information available and the results already obtained. 
9. Amorium is placed east and north of its correct position. As Ptolemy was 
working out his map—or, perhaps, as he was using the map of one of his pre- 
decessors—he would notice that Amorium lay not very far from the direct line 
irom Doryleum to Ancyra; he knew that a road led from Doryleum to Amorium, 
aud another from Amorium to Ancyra; to treat this route as the direct route was 
tempting, and on the whole least inconsistent with the facts as he conceived them. 
We may here notice the following figures and facts: Tavium to Cesarea Mazaka, 
correct distance about 120 miles; distance on Ptolemy’s map, 178 miles; distance 
by the road given in the Peutinger table, 191 Roman miles. The position of 
Tavium would be fixed from the north and east, of Mazaka from the east and 
south, with the result that on the map the détour would appear direct. Several 
of the towns on the road given in the Peutinger table are scattered about the line 
joining Mazaka and Tavium. Failing, then, a direct road which squared with 
previous results, Ptolemy sought and found an indirect road which was more 
amenable, 
it follows from what has been already said that wrong conclusions are certain to 
arise from treating Ptolemy’s map as if it were a modern map, or his geography 
as if it were a modern geography. An examination of his method of dealing 
- with his facts may help us to recover those facts, which in their turn may afford 
clues to sites, to the course and length of roads, or may explain the aberrations 
of other authorities, 
FRIDAY, AUGUST 19. 
The following Papers were read :— 
1. The Fulani Emirates of Northern Nigeria. 
By Major J. A. Burnon, I.A., F.R.GS. 
‘The paper dealt especially with a portion only of Nigeria, and its descriptions 
are inapplicable to the territory as a whole. There is a wide distinction between 
the open bush of Northern and the dense forest of Southern Nigeria, a gradual 
change from the Sahara southwards being observable both in the vegetation and 
in Man. The latter has degenerated towards the south, but the English picture of 
the West African ‘nigger’ is inapplicable to the higher type of the north. The 
southward progress of Islam has,been checked by the forest belt, and paganism 
holds its own in the south. No community isjpossible between the two systems, 
and recent disturbances, \in pagan districts are in no way connected with 
northern feeling. For a general description of Nigeria reference may be made to 
papers by Sir Frederick and Lady Lugard, the present description being restricted 
to the western districts known to the writer personally. The greater part of these 
are occupied by a Laterite plateau (broken about the tenth parallel by a granite 
belt) characterised by great monotony. Through it the Niger and its affluents 
have cut themselves broad flat valleys, and asa result of the action of the nume- 
rous rivers the surface has been broken into a succession of table-topped hills. Gene- 
rally speaking, the rivers—broad expanses of dark rushing water in the rains— 
become in the dry season blistering sand tracts, soon overgrown with dense scrub, 
