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1878.] Geography and Travels. l 59 
GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVELS. 
NARRATIVE OF HALLS NortH Porar ExrEDITION.!— Captain 
Hall having died on his return to the winter quarters of the 
Polaris, from his journey to the farthest point north hitherto at- 
tained, it was reserved for others to write the record of his daring 
and successful expedition. The volume contains everything of 
general interest relating to the origination, organization and the 
fitting up of the expedition, which was first suggested and organ- 
ized by Hall himself. One chapter is devoted to an account of 
Hall’s earlier researches and is accompanied by a map illustrating 
the route he pursued during his eight years of Arctic exploration, 
which fitted him so well for the crowning work of his life. Geo- 
graphers will also find in this volume a detailed account (some- 
times too irrelevant details are given) of the eventful history of 
the expedition after Hall’s death. The woodcuts are numerous, 
but are not of a high order of excellence. 
STANLEY’s ACCOUNT OF THE Conco.—Mr. Stanley thus sums up 
in his letter to the New York Hera/d and the London Telegraph, 
our present knowledge of the Congo River: The entire area the 
Congo drains embraces about 860,000 square miles. Its source 
is in that high plateau south of Lake Tanganyika, in a country 
called Bisa, or Ubisa by the Arabs. The principal tributary feed- 
ing Bemba Lake is the Chambezi, a broad, deep river, whose 
extreme sources must be placed about longitude 33° east. 
Bemba Lake, called Bangweolo by Livingstone, its discoverer, is 
a large body of shallow water, about 8,400 square miles in extent. 
It is the residuum of an enormous lake that in very ancient times 
must have occupied an area of 500,000 square miles, until by some 
great convulsion the western maritime mountain chain was riven 
asunder, and the Congo began to roar through the fracture. Is- 
suing from Bemba Lake, the Congo is known under the name of 
Luapula, which, after a course of nearly 200 miles, empties into 
e Mweru, a body of water occupying an area of about 1,800 
: square miles. Falling from weru, it receives the name of 
-= Lualaba, from the natives of Rua. In Northern Rua it receives 
an important affluent called the Kamalondo. Flowing in a direc- 
tion north by west, it sweeps, with a breadth of about 1400 yards, 
by Nyangwe Manyema, in latitude 26° 15’ 45” south, longitude 
26° 5’ east, and has an altitude of about 1,450 feet above the 
ocean. Livingstone, having lost two weeks in his dates, appears, 
according t to Stanford’s map of I 1874, to have placed Nyangwe in 
latitude 4° 1’ south, longitude 24° 16’ east, but this wide differ- 
_ ence may be due to the carelessness of the draughtsman. Those 
= who feel interested in it should compare it with the latest map 
1 Narrative of the North Polar Expedition, U. S. Ship Polaris, Capt. C. F. Hall, 
commanding. Edited under the direction of the Hon. G. M. Robeson, Secretary of 
the Navy, by Rear-Admiral C. H. Davis, U. S. N. U. S. Naval Observatory, 1876. 
= Be 69 ' ; o 
