Scientific Reviews. 37 
on the morrow fashion their trenchant blades into the humble but 
more amiable goose’s quill. Herein doubtless may be discovered 
the cause of that wonderful stability, which, whether in peace or 
in war, this nation has for so many ages maintained. The internal 
resources of our warriors are the pillars of the state. 
Our author, who, if he must have confined himself to the state- 
ment of facts, would have been the author of but a meagre volume, 
calculating on the intimate relation between size and importance, 
has swelled out his production to 195 pages, by a most ingenious 
assortment of miscellaneous articles, amongst which, as in a ped- 
lar’s box, surely something may be discovered to the taste of every 
applicant. 
~ In the hope of reconciling “ all or most of what has been said of 
the Niger, from the times of Herodotus and Ptolemy, down to 
those of Park and Denham,” Sir Rufane commences with an ela- 
borate statement of the use of the articles the and a, as indications 
of specific and generic differences, and of their misapplication in 
this question. Thus the words Nile, Niger, &c. are all general 
appellations of rivers, derived from the different colours or depths. 
And a fundamental source of error arises in calling that rHE Nile, 
or THE Niger, (as if it were a particular river,) which is in fact 
only a Nile, (ora blue river,) or a Niger, (or black stream.) And 
the author hopes to reconcile the various accounts of THE Niger, 
** partly by the rectification and proper use of a grammatical par- 
ticle.’ But not satisfied with the detail of verbal criticism connect- 
ed with this object, the learned writer, after running over his vo- 
cabulary of languages, lapses into a lengthy note, backed by twelve 
pages of appendix, on the existence and character of the Greek 
digamma. 3 
There is no doubt that much discrimination is necessary in ap- 
plying the language of an uncultivated people in the description of 
natural objects. Amongst the names of rivers, these generic terms 
have been long marked in the appellations of the Ganges, the 
Zaire, the Quorra, &c. But we have been unable to discover, in 
the work of Sir R. Donkin, the manner or place in which he ex- 
poses the specific rivers which have been confounded under the 
general term. He conjectures, indeed, that the westward river of 
Abulfeda and Edrisi, is the same with Sultan Bello’s Kowarrama, 
and states with reason that the application, by the Arabians and 
Pliny, of the name Nile to the river rising in Mauritania, does not 
necessarily prove that it is the same with the Nile of Egypt; but 
he afterwards attempts to show that these rivers have a communi- 
cating branch. Thus, however ingenious and pretty, this little 
grammatical toy is no index of truth. 
A commentary on the geography of Ptolemy succeeds this dis- 
sertation on the use of the article, in which the author evinces 
much labour, and much estimation thereof. It is not our intention, 
however, to follow the Lieutenant-General through the wearisome 
stages of his critical examination into the course of Ptclemy’s rivers, 
