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observed among meteorites. Besides this, it is asserted that the iron resembling that found at Caille, and the stone resembling that of Sétif, have been mutually connected by stratification upon an unknown globe, and it is the first time that such a connection has been materially demonstrated.

M. Meunier remarks that the meteorites which now arrive upon the earth are not of the same mineralogical nature as those which fell in past ages. Formerly iron fell; now stones fall. During the last 118 years there have been in Europe but three falls of iron, whereas there have been, annually, on an average, three falls of stones. The greater number of meteoric irons, which exist in the Paris collection, have fallen on the earth at undetermined epochs; all the meteoric stones are of comparatively recent date. Perhaps we are even justified in saying that stones of a new kind are beginning to arrive, for falls of carbonaceous meteorites were unknown before the year 1803, and four have been observed since then.

From this assemblage of facts, M. Stanislas Meunier concludes that meteorites are the fragments of one or more heavenly bodies which, at a period relatively recent (for these waifs are never found except in superficial strata), revolved round the earth, or perhaps round the moon. Having, in the course of ages, lost their own proper heat and become penetrated by the cold of space, they have arrived, much sooner than the moon, by reason of their inferior volume, at the last term of the molecular actions which are operating upon our satellite, and which are rendered evident to our eyes by the enormous crevices, the deep fissures with which it is furrowed. Split in all directions, they have fallen to ruin, and their fragments, remaining scattered along the orbit, so as to form a circle more or less complete, have at the same time become arranged, according to their density, in zones concentric with the focus of attraction towards which they are constantly impelled by the resistance of the ethereal medium through which they move. The masses nearest to the centre, and which were principally composed of iron, were the first to fall; afterwards came the stones, in which period we now are. Hereafter, perhaps, will arrive meteorites analogous to our crystallised formations, and perhaps even to our stratified beds.

Thus meteorites, the veritable products of demolition, represent, according to M. Meunier, the last period of the evolution of planetary bodies. The incandescent orb, the sun, figures at the present day in our system as the sole representative of the primitive state through which the earth, and all the other bodies which revolve around it, have passed; the moon representing the future which awaits the terrestrial sphere, now in all the plenitude of life; and, finally, meteorites show us what becomes of the dead stars, how they are decomposed, and how their materials return into the vortex of life.

It is to be regretted that the information received from Dr. Livingstone should be so imperfect. Still, though insufficient in itself, perhaps, to warrant our arriving at any positive conclusion respecting his claim to have discovered the chief sources of the Nile, the information furnished by him affords material aid towards the solution of that great problem of African geography, and is generally of much greater value, in my estimation, than it would appear to be in that of your learned correspondent "F.R.G.S."

Before adverting to the main subject, I desire to point out, in the first place, that Dr. Livingstone has definitively settled that the Chambeze—the New Zambesi of some of our maps—is not an affluent of the well-known river Zambesi, which flows eastward into the Indian Ocean, but is a distinct stream, of which the course is to the west and north-west. On this point it is due to Mr. Cooley to say, that, although he was mistaken respecting the upper course of the Zambesi itself, he has long contended for the separate existence of the "New Zambesi," or Chambeze.

Secondly, Dr. Livingstone has ascertained that the Chambeze, in its lower course beyond the capital of the Cazembe, is joined by another large river, the Lufira, coming from the south and southwest, which drains the western side of the country south of Tanganyika, as the Chambeze drains the east side. The Lufira was not seen by the traveller; but when he was at some place, not named by him, in 11° S. lat., that river was pointed out to him as being at some distance west of that spot, and was described as being so large there as always to require canoes; for so I read his words:—"I have not seen the Lufira, but, pointed out west of 11° S., it is there asserted always to require canoes;"—which shows that it must come from a considerable distance south of that parallel.

In the next place. Dr. Livingstone informs us that the Chambeze enters Lake Bangweolo, and then changes its name to Luapula; that this river flowing north enters Moero Lake, and "on leaving Moero at its northern end by a rent in the mountains of Rua it takes the name of Lualaba, and passing on N.N.W. forms Ulenge in the country west of Tanganyika." This, it must be remarked, is not native information, but the result of the traveller's own personal observation on the spot. His letters are dated "near Lake Bangweolo;" and in speaking of the Lualaba he says, "I have seen it only where it leaves Moero, and where it comes out of the crack in the mountains of Rua."

To make it more certain that he is speaking of the Lualaba and not of the Luapula, the traveller expresses his intention "to follow down the Lualaba and see whether, as the natives assert, it passes Tanganyika to the west, or enters it and finds an exit by the river called Locunda [or Loanda] into Lake Chowambe;" which lake, he says, "I conjecture to be that discovered by Mr. Baker;"—adding, "I shall not follow Lualaba by canoes," &c.

Nothing could well be more explicit than this. And yet your correspondent represents Dr. Livingstone as saying that "he saw the Luapula only at this gap in the mountains," and describes the Lualaba as being a month's journey further west, and as falling into the Lulua and so joining the Zaire, or great river of Congo, on the west coast of Africa. There must clearly be some mistake here.

I think, too, there must be some misapprehension respecting "the great salt marshes, which chiefly supply the interior of Africa," described by "F.R.G.S." as situated on the banks of the Lualaba, a great running stream of fresh water. Is it not more likely that those salt marshes lie in some extensive depression in the interior of the continent, having no outlet, but in which the rivers that may flow into it are absorbed and lost?

Further, according to Dr. Livingstone, the Lualaba, after leaving Moero beyond the town of the Cazembe to the north, forms Ulenge, either a lake with many islands or a division into several branches, which are taken up by the Lufira. This I understand to mean, that the junction of the Lualaba and the Lufira is in Ulenge, north of the Cazembe's residence. "F.R.G.S." says, on the contrary, that the Lufira "flows into the Luapula from the west about 100 miles S.W., or S.S.W., from the Cazembe." How are these two statements to be reconciled?

Then "F.R.G.S." says, "When our author speaks of the Luviri (Lufira) entering Tanganyika at Uvira, he evidently casts the dimly discerned views of the natives into his own preconceived mould, and clothes them in his own language." But Dr. Livingstone could scarcely have had any "preconceived" notions on the subject, unless he took with him Mr. Cooley's map of 1852, in which the Chambeze, under the name of the New Zambesi, is laid down as joining the Luviri and then, under the name of Luapula, falling into the lake of "Zangañika" on its west side in about 8° S. lat. And this opinion Mr. Cooley would seem to regard still as the correct one; for in a letter which appeared in the Daily Telegraph of the 27th August last, with his initials "W.D.C.," he expressly states that "the drainage of the Cazembe's country is all into the Nyanza on the east." Though why this name should be applied to the Lake of Tanganyika is not patent. We know the "Victoria Nyanza" of Speke, the "Albert Nyanza" of Baker, the "Lake Tanganyika" of Burton, and the "Lake Nyassa" of Livingstone. We also know that in Mr. Cooley's maps of 1845 and 1852, Tanganyika and the more southerly Lake Nyassa are made to form one continuous body of water under the name of "Nyassa, or the Sea." But the present