APPENDIX. No. IV. 
cxxi 
calculating upon an absence from the coast of about ten weeks. Mr. Max- 
well considered this scheme as perfectly practicable, and likely to be attended 
with no very great expense ; but he was prevented from executing his inten- 
tion by the war of 1793, v.'hich made it inconvenient and unsafe for him to 
encumber the deck of his vessel with supernumerary boats. 
IV. The fourth and last opinion respecting the termination of the Niger, 
is that of a German geographer, M. Reichard, which was published in the 
" Ephemerides G^ographiques," at Weimar, in August, 1808, and is referred 
to in a respectable French work, entitled, " Precis de la Geographic Uni- 
verselle, par M. Malte-brun." The fourth volume of this work, which ap- 
peared at Paris in the year 1813, (p, 635) represents M. Reichard's hypothesis 
to be, that the Niger, after reaching Wangara, takes a direction towards the 
south, and being joined by other rivers from that part of Africa, makes a great 
turn from thence towards (he south-west, and pursues its course till it approaches 
the north eastern extremity of ihe gulph of Guinea, wiien it divides and 
discharges itself by different channels into the Atlantic; after having formed 
a great Delta, of which the Rio del Rey constitutes the eastern, and the Rio 
Formoso, or Benin River, the western branch. 
Without entering into the details of M. Reichard's reasoning in support of 
this hypothesis, which is often somewhat hazardous and uncertain, it may be 
sufficient for the present purpose to observe, that his principal argument is 
founded on a consideration of the peculiar character belonging to the tract of 
country situated between the two rivers, which consists of a vast tract of low, 
level land, projecting considerably into the sea, and intersected by an infinity 
of small branches from the principal rivers. In these and other respects, it 
appears to bear a considerable resemblance, according to the best descriptions 
of that coast which we possess, to the Deltas at the mouths of the Nile, the 
Ganges, and such other great rivers, as by depositing large quantilies of allu- 
vial matter previous to their discharge into the sea, form gradual additions to 
the coast. For it may be proper in this place to remark, that the formation of 
Delias, even by rivers of the first magnitude, is by no means universal ; some 
of the greatest that are known being without them. Of this the Amazon, 
Plata, and Oronoko are mentioned by Major Rennell as distinguished 
instances ; to which may now be added, the Congo. The difference appears 
to be owing to the depth of the sea at the mouth of the rivers, and perhaps 
to other circumstances, which are not quite understood .* 
* See Rennell's Geogr. System of Herodotus, 4to. p. 483. 
VOL. II. r 
