The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-09-03
FIRST EDITION
"A r r I G A.
DR.. Livingstone's Explorations-No-
thing Known of HIS Present
Situation-A New Canal
Project.

The Chinas mails bring full accounts of the
proceedings of the British Association for the
Advancement of Science in its annual meeting
Exeter. We CLEAN some passages OF general
African Exploration.
In the Geographical Section, the chairman said
Of DIR. Livingstone
They still only know that up to December,
1885, he was alive and well and in good spirits
travelling westward from the neighborhood of
Lake Nyassa, and that he disappeared in the OBJ
security beyond. Further than this all was con-
lecture. Whether they might hear of him in the
Nile basin, from Sir samuel Bakers expedition,
or on the west coast must for the present be
pure subject of speculation
Among the papers read was an account of Mr.
st. Vincent Erskine's discovery of the mouth of
the Limpopo, contributed by DR.. Mann The
northern and northwestern frontier of the Trans
vaal State, in South Africa, is formed for u
stretch of three hundred and twenty miles by
large river well known there along the border
of the occupied territory, as the Lmpopo. But
from the northeast corner of the State the river
makes broad sweep, and then flows southeast
wards for a course of two hundred and fifty
miles through an untracked and unsur-
veyed wilderness, being there Joined after
one hundred miles of descent by another large
stream, designated the Lapalu 1t has been
reproach to geography hitherto that no one has
traced the course of the combined rivers to de-
termine where they enter the sea. In the early
part of last year this problem was attacked by
MIR. st. Vincent Erskine, the of the Colonial
the journey being memorable for its bold per-
sonal adventure as for its geographical result,
the greater part of the distance having been
traversed on foot, and considerable portion of
II alone.
Towards the end of November, 1868, and after
an absence of twenty-seven weeks, Mr. Erskiue
again reached Natal. He was so changed by
privation and illness that friends in the distance
did not recognize him. He has since written to
say that he is nevertheless quite prepared to
start again to complete such parts of his investI-
CATION of the course of these rivers as he had
left unfinished, but that If he ever takes up the
broken thread of adventure in that direction
again, he will certainly avoid two mistakes
which he made the first occasion. He will
never again venture upon such trip so ill sup
piled with necessares and material of barter,
and he will 90 professedly as trader, and not
as gentleman and amateur explorer.
New Canal i'm Africa.
DR.. Beke sent paper "On Canal to Unite
the Upper Nile and Red Sea" which shadowed
forth project for forming water communion
ton between the Red Sea and the interior of
Africa-not by turning the waters of the sea in
land, as it was said NJ. Lesseps contemplated
doing, and thus suDmerging the Sahara or Great
Desert, but by diverging into the Arabian Gulf
portion of the headwaters of the Nile. DR..
Beke had no doubt of the feasibility of the
scheme, inasmuch as the main features of
water-course are already formed by nature
The proposed canal would simply follow the
line of a natural water-course running from
southwest to northeast between the sixteenth
and the nineteenth parallel of south latitude,
while its operation would be to convey
portion of the water of the Atbara the last great
tributary of the Nile, into the Red Sea, at
short distance to the south of the port of Suwa-
kin. In Sir John Bowrngs "Report on Egypt
and CANDIDA" QS40), he stated, on the authority
of NJ. Linant, that the Ashbarra, or Bahr Mog-
ren, might easily be turned into the Red Sea at
Suwakin This passed over plains and sands, and
the remains of q bed or canal already traced by
human hands exist from the Ashbarra to the Red
Sea; and in 1852 NM. De Malgar and Yayssire
proceeded from Suwlkn up wady to Fiik, in
Taxa. and stated that the waters of the Cash,
when at their highest, partly found their way to
Taxa down the valley along which they had
travelled while in 1855 DR.. Schweinfurth pro-
ceeded from Suwalin to Kassaa and found the
Cash to be a tributary to, if not identical with,
the Wady Langeb. A junction between the
Cash and the Atbara might easily be made. A
junction was attempted in 1910, but the natives
frustrated it.
The head of the proposed canal would be
about 1900 feet above the Red Sea, and its
length being in round numbers, 240 geographi-
cal miles, it would be fall of feet in q mile,
or only in 1900. Thus there could hardly be
any works OF magnitude either to render the
present natural channel navigablc to prevent
the needless waste of water. The approaching
opening of the Suez Canal has incidentally en-
HANGED the Importance generally of this means
of bringing the interior of Eastern Africa into
drectcommunicat' on with One of the great com
mercal highways Of the world, which the Red
Sea is about to become far more than it
ever was before. The Egyptian province of
Taxa and the neighboring districts watered by
the Cash and the Atbara was region capable of
furnishing British manufacturers an almost un-
! limited supply of cotton, which is absolutely
essential to the million whose subsistence is de-
pendent on this great branch of our national in
dustry. Cotton had been produced here since
1890, and its cultivation made such rapid pro-
gress that in 1924 the quantity exported was
thirty-twO million pounds valued at eS4S, ,479.
For exporting the extra cotton produced, such a
canal aspropOsed would be of the greatest adyan-
ta-e.