The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1875-12-16
stanley,s African Discoveries.

The New York Herald, of November
90, contains letter from Stanley, the
African explorer. 1t was written on the
banks of the Victoria Niyanza, that
great inland sea whose borders were
first determined with any degree of
accuracy by Mr. Stanley himself. The
date of the epistle is April y, and for
more than seven months it has been
passed from hand to hand in the center
of the most benighted continent, now
carried by a naked negro, now by dig
nified- Moslem, and again by the sol
diers of the KhediYe, hundreds of miles
before being intrusted to civilized mails.
To form an accurate judgment of the
| importance of SANKEY'S discoveries on
/ data no more extensive than that con-
lveyed in this and similar letters, writ
ten under the greatest difficulties, were
not only difficult but an almost impos-
sible task. To judge from the hints
given us, his explorations seem to lave
been crowned with degree of success
altogether unanticipated. At the time
of writing he had thoroughly examined
! thewhole of Lake Victoria Niyanza, and,
1 in his own opinion, bad determined il,
almost beyond reasonable doubt, to be
the source-of the White Nile. While it
might be too strong an assertion to state
that this mystery of centuries, the origin
4 of the Nile, has at last been made plain,
1 lit is certain that Stanley has done more
to examine the Lake and its outlets than
any other man, and consequently he
may very Justly take the honor claimed
for.h blythe Herald-ass the leading
authority on Central African geogra-
phy. by no means the only white tray
eler who visited the Lake, he is, never
theless, the first to bring to its eXamin-
alton the benefits of careful and long
continued survey of all its physical Pc
culiaritieS.
Having already been on three African
expeditions, Stanley had the advantages
of previous experience, and besides
this, enioyed the benefits of careful
| study of all published works on the
subject, and the acquaintance and adj
vice of many eminent African travel
ers and geographers, Thoroughly pre-
pared, therefore, for his work, we are
not surprised to hear of his penetrat-
hing further and discovering more than
any of his predecessors. His. discover
les fix the dimensions of the Victoria as
being much more considerable than had
been supposed, since it is 215 feet deep,
and offers a reservoir to the Shlmeeyu
River, a stream one mile in width ana
4 supposed to be $40 miles long. The. eX-
/ act dimensions of the lake are not Civ
en-, but body of water which was OBJ
served by Spoke, and supposed to con-
stitute the whole Lake, is proved by
Stanley to be merely an estuary OF the
true Niyanza, sixty-five miles long by
twelve broad The Albert Niyanza
fstill remains for Stanley to conquer,
land no doubt, in due time, we will hear
from him again. He is in the region OF
the Niles origin, and, from his we'll
known courage and perseverance, we
have good grounds for believing that he
! will not return until the problem OF the
! Nile-a mystery since the days of Ptole-
/ my-is as plain a fact as the origin of
1.-THE Mississippi. He is liable to make
mistakes and hurried statements, such
as the one in this letter about the
"tide'' in Victoria Hiyanza, when it is
extremely improbable that there should
be such a thing but this and-its like
are venial errors, to be corrected by
time and more extended observation.
Of course he had numerous adventures
with the natives, fought battles with
them, and killed some of them, but
| these are circumstances which fall TO
the lot of every African Traveller, and
are therefore little remarkable. The
principal interest of his narrative lies in
the geographical discoveries, and the
scientific world will ther efore wait with
Impotence for further developments
st. Louis Globe.