Are they of our Adamite race? The equatorial
portion of Africa at the Nile sources has an average altitude above the
sea-level of about 4,000 feet; this elevated plateau forms the base of a
range of mountains, that I imagine extends, like the vertebrae of an
animal, from east to west, shedding a drainage to the north and south.
Should this hypothesis be correct, the southern watershed would fill the
Tanganika lake: while farther to the west another lake, supplied by the
southern drainage, may form the head of the river Congo. On the north a
similar system may drain into the Niger and Lake Tchad: thus the
Victoria and the Albert lakes, being the two great reservoirs or sources
of the Nile, may be the first of a system of African equatorial lakes
fed by the northern and southern drainage of the mountain range, and
supplying all the principal rivers of Africa from the great equatorial
rainfall. The fact of the centre of Africa at the Nile sources being
about 4,000 feet above the ocean, independently of high mountains rising
from that level, suggests that the drainage of the Equator from the
central and elevated portion must find its way to the lower level and
reach the sea. Wherever high mountain ranges exist, there must also be
depressions; those situated in an equatorial rainfall must receive the
drainage from the high lands and become lakes, the overflow of which
must form the sources of rivers, precisely as exemplified in the sources
of the Nile from the Victoria and the Albert lakes.
Pages:
671
672
673
674
675
676
677
678
679
680
681
682
683
684
685
686
687
688
689
690
691
692
693
694
695