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Ptolemy's geography of Central Africa seems to say that the science was then (second century A.D.) in a state of decadence from what was known to the ancient Egyptian priests as revealed to Herodotus 600 years before his day (or say B.C. 440). They seem to have been well aware by the accounts of travellers or traders that a great number of springs contributed to the origin of the Nile, but none could be pointed at distinctly as the "Fountains," except those I long to discover, or rather rediscover. Ptolemy seems to have gathered up the threads of ancient explorations, and made many springs (six) flow into two Lakes situated East and West of each other—the space above them being unknown. If the Victoria Lake were large, then it and the Albert would probably be the Lakes which Ptolemy meant, and it would be pleasant to call them Ptolemy's sources, rediscovered by the toil and enterprise of our countrymen Speke, Grant, and Baker—but unfortunately Ptolemy has inserted the small Lake "Coloe," nearly where the Victoria Lake stands, and one cannot say where his two Lakes are. Of Lakes Victoria, Bangweolo, Moero, Kamolondo—Lake Lincoln and Lake Albert, which two did he mean? The science in his time was in a state of decadence. Were
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David Livingstone (The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death: 1869-1873)