Appendix A. 
latitudes are very closely those of the northern shores of Lakes Victoria Nyanza 
and Albert Edward. 
I come now to the longitudes. That of the western lake (57°) differs 
scarcely 3° from the longitude of Alexandria (60° according to Ptolemy), 
hence actually oidy 2° 30' by the above-mentioned reduction. We have, there¬ 
fore, a result little inferior to the reality, since the longitudes of Alexandria and 
of the west side of Lake Albert Edward are relatively to the meridian of 
Greenwich 30 and 29° 30' (both E.) respectively, according to Stanley’s map. 
The longitude of the eastern lake is 65“ in Ptolemy, as above stated. It would 
consequently lie to the east of the meridian of Alexandria, and at a distance 
of 5“ (T 10') according to the reduction. Now the mean longitude of 
Lake Victoria is 33° 15' E., so that the difference is only minus 0° 55'. Thus 
in respect of the longitudes also there is nothing to prevent the identification of 
the two Ptolemaic lakes with Lakes Albert Edward and Victoria. 
The confluence of the two effluents is placed by Ptolemy under the 
meridian of Alexandria ( 12 ), and in the north latitude of 2°. Hence it 
may fairly be placed where the river called the Somerset Nile by Speke 
enters Lake Albert, from which it soon again issues. Its latitude is little more 
than 2 N., while its longitude does not greatly exceed 30° E. Everything 
might therefore lie reconciled by accepting Ptolemy’s figures without any 
serious modification. On the other hand, by the process of reduction we get 
for the point of confluence 6° 45' north latitude. It is, however, to be noted 
that somewhere about this latitude the main stream of the Nile begins to 
traverse a marshy region watered by several rivers nearly parallel to it, 
amongst them the Bahr el-Zaraf, the Nam Pol, and others, and that further 
on, towards latitude 9 N., the Bahr el-Abiad (White Nile) is joined both by 
the Bahr el-Ghazal coming from the west, and the Sobat from the east. To 
me the hypothesis does not seem at all too daring that precisely in this region 
the Alexandrian Geographer placed the confluence of the two upper branches, 
on the mistaken assumption that one of those rivers trending north was in fact 
the emissary of the eastern lake, just as for some years after Speke’s memorable 
expedition Lake Baringo was supposed to be a north-eastern feeder of Lake 
Victoria, and had for its emissary the Asua, which is now known to flow, not 
to the lake but straight to the Nile at Dufile. ( 13 ) 
The almost perfect agreement of the results of modern research with the 
Ptolemaic data regarding the geographical features of the two lakes, sources of 
the Nile, is, I repeat, to be considered as a mere coincidence. Still the idea 
entertained by the great geographer on the general disposition of the upper 
basin of the Egyptian river was, broadly speaking, correct. And this might 
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