33. Scientific Reviews. 
Geir and Ni-Geir, (according to the corrected orthography ;) for, 
except in an historical point of view, the evidence of Ptolemy is 
inapplicable to the question in dispute. Since that geographer is’ 
‘* so wild in his latitudes,” and since the relation of sound even 
cannot be determined between the Ptolemean and present names 
of places in this district, it is upon modern discovery alone that we 
can expect to construct a map which shall approximate to the 
truth. Nevertheless it is a fine field for ingenuity and laborious 
research, to attempt an alliance between the vagaries of Ptolemy. 
and the present state of our knowledge, though we are sorry that 
the author has spent so much acumen in proving what he would 
have found long since expressed in the maps of Gossellin and Man- 
nert. However, the additional testimony of Sir R. Donkin will 
probably tend to convert those geographers who still cling to the 
opinion of D’Anville and others, that Ptolemy’s first meridian is to 
be placed in Ferro of the Canaries, instead of the westernmost of the 
Cape Verd Islands. : 
The result of the analysis of Ptolemy may be thus generally 
stated. ‘The Geir (Misselad) flows from the Pharanx Garamantica 
(mines of Fertit) into Lake Nuba, (Fittre.) “I am aware,” says 
the author, “ that this has been asserted before, and the Misselad 
has been named the Ghir (as it has been written) of Ptolemy ; 
but this was mere assertion, without any sort of proof. That proof 
I have now endeavoured to give, but I never could have given it, 
had I not gone to Ptolemy’s original text,—and, had I not further, 
by rectifying his first meridian, which had been drawn for him, 
but not by him, through Ferro, extricated the greater part of the 
course of the Geir from the bed of the Egyptian Nile, into which 
that meridian inevitably plunged it, as well as Lake Nuba.” From 
Lake Fittre the Misselad flows into Lake Domboo, which Sir Ru- 
fane coincides with geographers in referring to the Chelonide of 
Ptolemy. Thus the Geir is equivalent to the Misselad, and its 
continuation the Wad-el-Ghazel, or Nile of Bornou. But the river 
Geir has a western branch ; and the author considers it an impor- 
tant point in his Dissertation, that he believes in the fact of a com- 
munication between the Tchad and the Nile of Bornou, (p. 74,) 
which would correspond to this branch.* “ If then,” says the, 
‘author in conclusion, “ the Geir and the Nile of Bornou have now 
been shown to be the same, I claim that they be so considered on 
the grounds I have laid down, and not on the dicta or maps of 
others—” 
Sir Rufane now, his text-book failing, ventures on his own hy- 
pothesis, after warning himself of the great care that must be 
taken, ‘‘ not to indulge in theory or speculation further than is ab- 
solutely necessary.” But we hardly know how, with a serious coun- 
* The information received by Major Denham from the sheikh Hamed, and 
the additional testimony of Captain Lyon, certainly support the opinion that 
there is 2 channel of communication between the Tchad and the river of Bornou, 
