New-York daily tribune., 1858-08-23

o-r,sj l1t fvet ts,;S i1ts cf AZ 'i'se - i''o
le,c.o d.,c,yery ..aa .e s2Te ~ rom lay c,i5f
source. u seems nteuiet sh,ety 20 AiusHs's ~
iprs.one's ne3-y of tie fruc'ure oi Tie
Southern part Of tie African Con,aeh:'
. theo,y e,senti.ly Few 70 tie erea. oody
a ns.ur,I,ts. uisled as they lave been sio,e
:,e beginning Of the centuyey The hugeblot'h oi
red pan, BY which geOlogsts lave chosen 70 rep
rsen. ,upposed central plateau Of i,ya II coffe-
.,,rdsnce with s similar formation il tie center Of
The Peninsula of British India. Il tarns o.. that
Mi, /, a mere analogy fc.on sad mistake.
Nu,ehi,on developed, in lis anniversary speech OF
Of 1852, from study Of Bain's nsP tae sane idea
which Li7inr.tone obtained By bis own eX2erieace
op the ground. Travelling among large Cape heA:hs,
rhododendrons and Alpine roses, the botanss felt
himself moving over Ligh table land, although uu-
der tropicsl ,un. Descending suddenly from tie
c,rsr Of Africa FIVE thousand feet into tie land OF
oil Cs.sDge, wstered BY the River Ql.ngo guided
in bic estimate of dep.h by the rude method Of
plugging BIZ. Thermometer into boiling water,
potcjpg the thin red strata Of rnud.rocks 70 lie
nearly horizontal, and remembering the enormous
shallow lakes snd labyrinth OF mighty rivers form
ing the Zsmbez and ssuipg through deep gorge
upon the Indian coast, be tho1 1ght ne s.w beneath
him recently and slowly uplfed Continent, OF
plstter .hspe with broken edges O1 the esss and
west The gres. north and south valley of Cosngo
River GUS this continental plateau 10 its bsse.
Mounting the opposite or western wall of the val
ley snd crossing the western division OF the pIates1,
be descended upon the LOiugo coas., over TIE up
turned edges Of the rocks He SAN az once Why
the long western coast Of Africa is 80 straight. Like
that of South America, itruns along deep geologl
cs break 10 the esrths crust, ,butu1sccOnpa1.db BY
erupted Ardes and volcanic cones. Itseems, bow
ever, to have escaped both DR.. Livingstone sud S.r
Roderick Murcbison that the vide north and south
cleft through the plateau a. the bottom of VIII n the
Coapeo mesnlers, must have been o::asi0ned by
just such broad ant cinal wave 10 the rocks asth.t
which geologists in America call the Cincinnati
axis, separating the eastern and western coal feds
although it's nearest Likeness is to the north and
south valleys of the Jordan and the Nile.
The Nile The name reminds us that Moses has
at length been settled. The fret chapter of Cen
ess, or rather the miserable Hebrew chronology OF
Archbishop Usher's Jew teachers, will no more
torment tie geologsts. Nnety-fve shafts have
been sunk by Hakekeysn Bey through the floor of
the valley, eight miles above the apex of the DELTA
An American engineer, at the expense OF Mus,ul-
man Viceroy has determined beyond dispute
question which was deliberately buried in fasehood
by Rabbi in the venerable school CT Tlberiss IN
the third century Of the Christian era. The
abstract of the second psrt of the memoir in the
twenty. seventh number of the proceedings Of the
Royal Society is we'll worthy of the careful study Of
theologians and all others who scof withou.
knowledge at Agassz's human bone in the coral
reef of Florida, and Motifs human skeleton under
the fifth cypress layer Of the delta Of the Mssis-
.ipp These shafts, sunk in rows from the foo. of
the Lyban rocks across to the banks of the Nile,
around TIE lonely obeli.k of Heopols, and along
side of the equally solitary statue of R.meses H.,
sale relic of that irst Of Egyptian cities, have made
known the following facts:
That the a'luvium consists of desert sand and
river mud, alternately, all the way down, the bot
tom layer of mud being exactly like the top; that
TO extinct orgsnc forms are present in it, but only
microscopic infusorisl she'll and recent lsnd-shells
and bones of domestic animals; that no rock was
touched by any of the shafts, the deepest Of which
was sixty feet; thst neighboring shafts showed very
diverse sections of sand and mud, bat not trace OF
laminstion probably because the mud dried so
rapidly and the winds were so fierce that sunburnt
bricks, in half Cor nearly quite destroyed condi-
tiop, made up much of the ground, and thst in
nearly every part and at the very lowest depth
reached, fragments of burnt brick and pottery were
obtained. Now the statue of Rsmeses III. is
known by Lepsius to date between 1894 and 1928
b. c. Yet its foundation rests on bed of sand but
twelve feet beneath the surface, while the borer
brought up fragment of pottery from mud layer
twenty. seven feet further down. The French engl.
of the last century decided the rate OF vertical
increase of the delta to be FIVE inches in century.
The researches at Heliopols give 3.lS inches to q
century. But the statue of Rameses fixes it
within a small fractoa of 81 inches in a century.
The lmt fragment Of pottery Lifted to the surface by
its side must, therefore, have been fashioned BY
civilized men 0,2S5 years previous to its erection,
l,6i6 b. c., and IL, 500 years sgo.