The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1872-05-08
The Probable Discoveries or Living
stone and the Herald Explorers.


The Probable Discoveries or Living
stone and the Herald Explorers.
The profound and widespread interest
awakened by the HERALD Livingstone expedi-
ton naturally seeks satisfaction in the proba-
BILE great discoveries of the explorer. Until q
few years ago the geography of unexplored re-
gions Of our planet was supposed to be entirely
beyond the power of human reasoning or
imagination to unveil, and all attempts at a
science of comparative geography were dis
couraged. The genius of Carl Ritter, the COM
panion of Humboldt, has in recent years con-
vinced the world of this mistake, and shown us
that with given physical conditions the ply
steal geographer may work out the approximate
character and geography of on unknown con-
tinent as well as the French astronomer pre-
dicted the position of the unknown planet Nep-
tune.
Biologists point Ills to the undoubted fact
Africa are situated in great wave Of terrestrial
upheaval. The coral structures around the
islands Of Mauritius, Reunion and Madagascar,
and those which line the Mozambique coast,
bear living witness to the past and continued
uprising Of the earth's crust, while on the
clearest evidences Of what was yesterday the
foaming water of the sea. Reefs emerged from
the sea- former beaches still incrusted with
salt, and Dogs left far inland and converted into
marshes, further attest the gradual rising Of
the great eastern half of the African Continent.
To the geological inference which is forced
upon us the hints afforded by the known geog-
raphy and meteorology Of Eastern and
Equatorial Africa must be added, as in the
highest degree suggestive and instructive.
The regions explored by Livingstone are
known to be rich in lacustrine deposits, as
Tanganyika, Baringo, Manyara, Micro and the
Nyanzas abundantly demonstrate. AS Mr..
Wakefield, missionary at Mombasa, stated in
his paper, published last year by the Royal
Geographical Society, the natives in the vicin-
ity Of Lake Nyanza declared to him they had
often travelled sixty days along the shore with
ont perceiving any signs Of it's termination;
that its surface was marked by daily tide,
and that the time required in crossing it by
canoe was at least six days. Such enormous
and extended sheets of water are formed on
the earth's surface in only two ways, either in
high attitudes where the great vapor-lnden
upper currents of air from the Equator descend
and are chilled by commixture with the Polar
air, giving up their moisture, or in tropical
districts, from the regular condensation in the
rainy seasons. A glance at the map Of the
world will show that the greatest and deepest
lakes OF inland caspians are not found in
the tropics, but always, as a rule in
the extra-tropical regions, generally on
the Polar side of belt girdling the
earth between the fortieth and fftieth
parallels. The only exception to this rule is
in Equatorial Africa, and the inference necessi-
tated from this fact is that the rainfall or con-
densation, which supplies the vast fresh water
lakes visited by Spoke, Baker and Living
stone is due, not to commixture of cold and
warm moist currents Of air, but to the con-
densation of the great band of wet and
easterly equatorial winds, which have swept
over the glowing waters Of the Indian Ocean
"the boiler of the Southern hemisphere -
against lofty and cool equatorial plateau in
the heart of the African Continent To this
conclusion every fact now brought to light
seems to point as with unerring finger. If
this be true the researches of Livingstone and
his coworkers will probably reveal one of the
most important tracts Of country on the globe,
blessed with climate he most delicious and
equable, besides settling the many long
agitated problems of the photography of the
Nile and its tributaries. Strange as this may
at first appear, we should reflect that
Equatorial South America is just such a
country, and enjoyed in early times magni-
fcent civilization. The remains of the great
road from Quito to Cuzco, running along the
plateau of the Andes for nearly thousand
miles, and wing with the Appian Way Of
Rome the Peruvian temples, fortresses, ter
raced gardens and aqueducts, equalling those
OF Augustus; the gorgeous Shrine of the Sum-
at Cuzco, the admiration of Pizarro, more
splendid than anything Europe could boast;
the royal baths Of Atahualpa, in which the
water was conducted into basins of gold
through subterranean channels of silver, were
among the discoveries that rewarded the early
Spanish explorers of Equatorial America, and
attested the fact that its natural advantages
were unbounded. The same lesson is taught
the traveller of to-day whose eye rests on the
superb city of Quito with its seventy thousand
inhabitants, lying on the breast of Pichincha
under the Equator itself, where the climate
tempered by altitude, is unsurpassed for luxury
and life, and where the invalid may, in few
hours, by ascending the table lands or descend
ing them, experience the most bracing or the
most relaxing temperatures.
We look with confidence for great results
from the labors of the African explorers, and
doubt not that they will far exceed in reality
the most sanp,line expectations