says that the Nile, flowing from the ocean, produces this effect; and that the ocean flows all round the earth. The third way of resolving this difficulty is by far the most specious, but most untrue. For by saying that the Nile flows from melted snow, it says nothing, for this river flows from Libya through the middle of Ethiopia and discharges itself in Egypt; how therefore, since it runs from a very hot to a colder region, can it flow from snow? Many reasons will readily occur to men of good understanding, to show the improbability of its flowing from snow. The first and chief proof is derived from the winds, which blow hot from those regions; the second is, that the country, destitute of rain, is always free from ice; but after snow has fallen, it must of necessity rain within five days; so that if snow fell, it would also rain in these regions. In the third place, the inhabitants become black from the excessive heat: kites and swallows continue there all the year; and the cranes, to avoid the cold of Scythia, migrate to these parts as winter quarters: if then ever so little snow fell in this country through which the Nile flows, and from which it derives its source, none of these things would happen, as necessity proves. But the person who speaks about the ocean, since he has referred his account to some obscure fable, produces no conviction at all, for I do not know any river called the Ocean, but suppose that Homer, or some other ancient poet, having invented the name, introduced it into poetry.” Captain Burton the learned traveller has some excellent paragraphs in his ‘Nile Basin,’ and remarks on this topic in connection with Ptolemy:— “That early geographer places his lake Nilus a little to the south of the Equator (about ten degrees), and 5° E. long. from Alexandria—that is, in 34° or 35° E. long. by our mode of reckoning. He was led into an error in placing these portions of the interior, bearing, as he conceived, from certain points in the east. Thus he places Cape Aromatum (Cape Asser or Cape Guardafui) in 6° N. lat., which we know to be in 11° 48′ 50″, being thus, say, 6° out of its true place. He places the lake, the source of the western branch of the river, 1° more to the north and 8° more to the west than the one for the eastern branch; subsequent inquiries may show us that these great features of Africa may yet turn out to be substantially correct.