Henry Gannett, Ernest Ingersoll, George Parker Winship, Edwin A. Start, and others

“ In the north is the Sahara Desert, the largest arid region in the world, where the prevailing winds are from the northeast and are hot and dry, while the humidity of the southerly winds that may penetrate into the interior is diminished by the heat, and seldom falls as rain. A second arid region, the Kalahari Desert, is found in the southern limb of the continent, between the Zambezi and Orange rivers and the eastern and western coastal highlands. It has a small spasmodic rainfall, which is usually insufficient to support a constant growth of vegetation. ”

“ The predominance of the British in Egypt and in South Africa, and the fact that the territory under British influence stretches with but one break (German East Africa) from the month of the Nile to Cape Town, has given rise to the project of a trunk line railway “from the Cape to Cairo,” a project which is likely to be carried out at no distant day, with far-reaching consequences in the development of the continent. This plan led to the crossing of the continent from south to north by Ewart S. Grogan and Arthur Sharp in 1899. ”

“ The question of the control of the Nile region and of South Africa gave rise to numerous attempts to secure adjustments in that quarter, and agreements to which Abyssinia, Egypt, France, Germany, Great Britain, and Italy were parties were made in 1891, 1893, 1894, 1895, 1896, 1897, and 1899. In 1900 the demarkation of British and German boundaries in West Africa was completed. By this process of absorption by agreement, the whole African continent has come into actual possession or political control of European States, with the exception of Morocco, Abyssinia, and Liberia. ”

“ About three-tenths of one per cent. of the population of Africa are Jews.
Social Conditions. Slavery is still “the open sore of Africa,” as Livingstone said, and nowhere is it more cruel, bloodthirsty, and destructive. The ivory trade is a constant source of trouble, setting tribe against tribe in war. Polygamy is widespread. The tribal government, the absence of central authority, the usual conditions of savage life, in bondage of superstition and terrors of every kind, these disturb life over great stretches of territory. ”

“ This phenomenon of sudden variations in level and consequently in area is peculiar to all the rivers and lakes of Africa within the equatorial regions, and is due to the seasonal distribution of rainfall. Between Abyssinia and the Zambezi River and within the bounds of the north and south highland region there is another inland drainage basin with several large lakes, which together constitute one of the most striking physiographical features of Africa. Apparently the lakes lie along a line of rifts or fissures which have been formed by sudden displacements of the earth's crust. ”

“ In form Africa consists of two parts, a northern ellipsoid, with an east and west longitudinal axis, comprising the Sahara-Sudan region, and a southern triangular limb attached to the southern side of the eastern half of the northern portion, and consisting of the Congo region and the South African highlands. Somewhat north of the middle point of the eastern side of the continent, a massive triangular projection, the Somali Peninsula, extends almost 1000 miles toward the Indian Peninsula of Asia. ”

“ The small extent of Africa's island territory is expressed by its proportion to the mainland area, which is as 1 to 48.
Topography. The typical expression of African topography is that of a plateau that rises here and there by successive terraces to increasing elevations up to and beyond 4000 feet, which altitude is the general level of the highland region that covers a large part of the southern and eastern portion of the continent. The edges of the continental mass are as a rule somewhat more elevated than is the interior, and the plateau rims approach close to the sea. ”

“ After the Carboniferous times, the whole Sahara region appears to have been elevated above sea-level and to have maintained this position until the beginning of the Cretaceous, when there was a subsidence, and the eastern part of the Sahara, including Egypt, was formed. Volcanic rocks are found in certain parts of the interior, but they are relatively unimportant. In Lower Egypt, the ridge that forms the western border of the great rift or fault of the Red Sea is made up of gneisses, granites, and basic igneous rocks, with a sedimentary cap called the “Nubian” sandstone. ”

“ The region of arid waste lands called the Sahara lies between the Sudan on the south and the Atlas Mountains and the Egyptian coast on the north. It is a part of an arid belt extending eastward to Baluchistan, the entire area measuring about 4,000,000 square miles. Of this area at least two-thirds lies west of Suez, and is known in general as the Sahara. It is all an elevated plain, into which many valleys have been eroded by the ancient drainage systems which are now the only marked topographical features of the region. ”

“ The heathen African is the slave of this low type of religion, and, in consequence, his life is full of terrors, as it is to the interest of the fetish doctors to work upon these fears. Idolatry is not found in central Africa at all, and nowhere is it so elaborated as in India. ”

“ According to the nature of the soil and of the climate, the population is distributed very unevenly over the surface, being very dense in the Nile delta and massed somewhat densely in the upper Nile valley, and generally throughout the Sudan, less thickly over the southern plateau, and very thinly in the outlying regions of Morocco and Tripoli; while large tracts, especially in the western Sahara and in the Libyan and Kalahari wastes, are absolutely uninhabited. ”

“ Resident birds display similar unlikeness to Europe and Asia, and suggestive resemblances to those of the Australian and Neotropical regions. Thus, the ostrich, so widespread and characteristic of Africa, is unknown elsewhere, but its allies are the extinct and modern ratite birds of the Australasian archipelago and the rheas of Argentina. Africa is rich in reptiles, but few are peculiar, chiefly terrestrial venomous snakes and the chæmasaurid lizards ”

“ The maximum limit of precipitation is probably attained in Kamerun, where the total rainfall in the year may exceed 350 inches, while the Niger Delta and the coasts of Sierra Leone and Liberia also are excessively humid. On the east equatorial coast the winds from the Indian Ocean deliver considerable moisture, but not in such abundance as on the west coast. As they pass into the interior, the winds from both the Atlantic and Indian oceans are deprived of their humidity, especially in the mountains, which act as precipitating agents. ”

“ Throughout a large portion of Africa, especially in the mountains of the east, and in the Sahara and Kalahari deserts, the temperature varies widely between summer and winter and between day and night, as is characteristic of all desert regions. ”

“ Africa is an independent continent in even less degree than is either of the two Americas, for it forms the southwesterly extension of the Old World land-mass, and it lies in close proximity to Asia and Europe, with both of which continents it has, during long periods of past geological time, been intimately united by broad isthmuses. ”

“ Modern Exploration. Thus far the Portuguese had been almost alone in the exploration of Africa, but in the second half of the eighteenth century a new era of discovery began—an era in which men of several nationalities have had a share, and by the results of which several nations have sought to profit. The new line of explorers is headed by James Bruce (q.v.) , a Scotchman who had been British consul at Algiers from 1763 to 1765. While in Egypt in 1768 he conceived the plan of seeking for the sources of the Nile. ”

“ In summer the isotherm of 80° F. incloses the whole of the Sahara Desert, and over a considerable portion of this area the average summer temperature is 97° or more. This region of extreme heat, which is the largest in the world, may be delimited by a line drawn from Khartum west to Timbuktu, thence north to El-Golea in the Algerian Sahara, thence southeast to Murzuk and thence to Berber on the Nile. The mountain regions of Algeria and Morocco, and parts of British South Africa and of German South-West Africa have a subtropical or temperate climate. ”

“ The brown-hued Berbers seem to have been the fundamental race stock throughout northern Africa, with perhaps Aryan and Semitic infusions, due to the contact of Egypt with Asia and Europe. Whether the Hamitic peoples of Africa were or were not autochthonous is a problem for the settlement of which no sufficient data exists. The knowledge possessed by the ancients of the continent as a whole, so far as we have accounts of it, can be briefly stated. The rulers of Egypt, as subsequently those of Carthage, attempted to extend their influence toward the south and west ”

“ The west side of Central Africa, from the Kunene River to the Gulf of Guinea, has been only partly explored. Such information as is available would indicate that its structure is similar to that of the eastern coast. On the shore of Angola there is a narrow fringe of Cretaceous sandstones, and in the interior crystalline rocks, mostly granite and gneiss, and fossiliferous sandstones of undetermined age predominate. It seems probable that these formations extend into the interior toward the Congo Basin, and they may reach also northward into the Sudan. ”

“ The high ranges of Adamawa and the coast mountains separate its more westerly northern tributaries from the Ogowe and other coastal rivers. The mountains which separate the Congo Basin from the coast are rather the broken eroded margin of the continental plateau than true mountains, and few if any peaks exceed 5000 feet in height. ”

“ The largest lakes (Victoria, Albert, Albert Edward, Kivu, Tanganyika, and Nyassa) drain into the Nile, the Congo, or the Zambezi, and are fresh water bodies. Victoria, Tanganyika, and Nyassa rival in extent the great lakes of North America. For further details, see articles on Congo, Victoria Nyanza, etc.
Climate. Of all the great land divisions of the globe, Africa is characterized by the greatest uniformity of climate. It stretches into both the north temperate and south temperate zones, but the greater part of its area is included within the tropics ”

“ The 175,000,000 inhabitants of the continent represent the white and the black varieties of man, or mixtures of these. Northern and northeastern Africa have been occupied in historic times by white races, while equatorial and southern Africa were the home of black races; but the white Africans have from remote antiquity forced themselves into the black man's territory, and negro blood has mixed with that of Hamite and Semite across the Sahara ”

“ In the southern highland is the Kalahari-Ngami Desert (altitude 2250-3000 feet) ; the central plateau falls toward its middle to form the Congo Basin (altitude 600-1600 feet) ; in the central Sudan the Lake Chad (altitude 900 feet) and Bodele (altitude 500 feet) depressions receive the drainage of a great interior region that has no outlet to the sea; and in the northwestern Sahara several inclosed basins lie at altitudes of from 400 to 600 feet above the ocean. ”

“ In the Sahara Desert the date palm grows often in extensive groves in the oases, and its wide distribution is probably due in large part to the dispersion of its seeds by the nomadic tribes, for whom its fruit serves as an important article of food. ”

“ The northern and southern points of the continent are almost equidistant from the equator; so that Africa, compared with South America, has a greater proportion of its area situated in the torrid zone. ”

“ The Mediterranean coast region and the extreme southern extension have a dry climate that is tempered by rains during certain seasons. Besides the continental distribution of rainfall, there is a seasonal variation in the amount received in different latitudes. In the regions near the equator rain may fall during every month of the year, but the periods of greatest precipitation occur when the sun is nearly vertical, in spring and fall. Away from the equator there is generally but one wet season. See articles on countries of Africa.
Flora. ”

“ The central depression of the Kalahari Desert and Ngami Basin in the southern part of the highland, and the deep valleys cut by the rivers that drain this interior basin, serve to divide this southern region into four well-marked isolated plateaus. The most southerly plateau occupies the Cape, Natal, Orange River, and Transvaal colonies, and their seaward edges, known as the Roggeveld, Schnee, Zwarte, and Drakenberg mountains, rise in single peaks of 9000 to 11,000 feet. North of the Transvaal, between the Limpopo and the Zambezi valleys, is the less extensive plateau of Matabeleland. ”

“ The eastern border of this basin is separated from the Nile waters by a line of highlands which continue northward across the desert, and which culminate in Darfur in the Marra Mountains, rising some 7000 feet above the plain, and forming a watershed for eastern Sudan. The western border of the Chad Basin is formed by rocky plateaus, which constitute a divide between this and the Niger Basin; and a uniform plain, diversified by rocky hills, stretches westward to the coast mountains. ”

“ In central Sudan, crystalline rocks have been found along the Benue River and in the region between this river and the Niger. In the extreme western Sudan, sedimentary strata with Devonian and Carboniferous fossils prevail; they are also developed to a lesser extent on the Gold Coast, where they overlie gneisses and schists. The interior of Liberia and Sierra Leone is supposed to be composed largely of crystalline rocks. The Sahara Desert presents a monotonous stretch of horizontal eroded beds of Paleozoic age resting upon eruptives and gneisses. ”