9 ° 
THE TANGANYIKA PROBLEM. 
water from the whole drainage area of Kivu has been 
entirely cut oft from the Albert Edward Nyanza and the 
Nile. And we see visible traces of this in the existence 
of old water-marks and beaches running round the shores 
of the Albert Edward and Albert Nyanzas, 50 feet above 
their present level. 
Everywhere to the north along the course of the Nile 
there are similar physical evidences and traditions of the 
disappearance of old lakes, and it is extremely probable 
that the shrinkage of the upper waters of the great river 
of Egypt, which is recorded in history, is possibly still 
going on, and is directly due to the recent changes which 
have taken place in the modern volcanic dam between 
Kivu and the Albert Edward Nyanza. 
Turning now to the south of the region of the volcanic 
dam, the effects produced by its formation have been no 
less conspicuous and strange. The whole drainage area 
of Kivu has been added to that of Tanganyika ; and it is 
a most remarkable fact that the outlet of Kivu, the Rusisi 
River, is five or six times bigger than the Luakuga, the 
outlet of Tanganyika itself. Were we, therefore, to cut 
off the Rusisi River from Tanganyika, that lake would 
altogether cease to overflow. 
The water of Tanganyika is somewhat salt. It seems to be 
fresher now than when Livingstone and Stanley examined 
it, while, as both these explorers aver, there are traditions 
among the Arabs that, in the recollection of living men, it 
was a lake which had never flowed out at all. 
From these considerations it would, therefore, seem quite 
probable that after Kivu had filled up through the formation 
of the volcanoes, its overplus of water flowed into Tan- 
ganyika for a great number of years, until the level of 
this lake was also raised to such a degree, that it, in like 
