Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 November 1891 — Ptolemaic Africa. [ARTICLE]

Ptolemaic Africa.

If Ptolemy’s map of northeastern Africa is to be relied upon—which has been doubted—modern travelers in the eastern equatorial regions have merely rediscovered what was in some way made known to the Alexandria geographer two thousand years ago. To test.the accuracy of Ptolemy, Dr. H. Schlichter has constructed two maps—one from Ptolemic data only, and the other showing the latest knowledge. A careful comparison, with allowance for early defects, shows many striking coincidences. Most of the places on the east coast marked by Ptolemy are readily identified with places well known to-day; while in the interior, Ptolemy’s Eastern Nile lake proves to be the Victoria Nyanza, the Western Nile lake to be Lake Albert or Lake Albert Edward, the eastern end of the Mountains of the Moon coincides with a point a little south of Mount Kenia and the western end with RUwenzori, and the confluence of the two rivers forming the Nile agrees with the place where the Somerset Nile flows into Lake Albert.