The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1876-01-20
IN THE GEOGRAPHICAL WORLD.
The Important Discoveries of 1S75---A fricu
and the Open Polar Sea.

| The Important Discoveries of 1S75---A fricn
and the Open Polar sea.
The year 1876 will ever be memor-
able date in the history of geographical
discovery. Within the twelvemonth two
of the most important questions of Afri-
can geography have been settled ; and
in the far north the demonstration of an
open water way between Europe and the
countries drained by the great Siberian
rivers is perhaps the most important ad-
dition to geographical science that could
be made in polar regions. Certainly
there remains for no future year SO many
frstrate problems to solve.
The source of the Nile For twenty
centuries it has been the goal of the ex-
plorer's ambition. The boldest spirits
have essayed its discovery, only to be
turned back by insuperable obstacles.
Its conquest waited Tor the plucky en-
ergy and resistless push of Stanley.
Starting from Zanzibar in November,
1874, with three hundred soldiers and
carriers, an important part of whose lug
gage was the open boat Lady Alice, in
sections, Stanley had before him seven
hundred miles of unknown country
part forest and part desert-much of it
swarming with hostile sayages. By dint
of resolute marching and fighting, he
accomplished in hundred days what in
he usual course of African travel would
have taken as many weeks, though at
the cost of half his command; and on
February twenty. seventh he caught his
first glimpse of the great lake with which
his name must hereafter be inseparably
associated.
Speke and Baker had traced the Nile
to the Victoria Niyanza. What was the
compass of that great freshwater sea,
and whence came its supplies2 Thanks
to the Lady Alice, which was soon set up
and ahoat, these questions had not long
to wait for solution. Within the next
sixty days, its shores and numerous
islands had been mapped, and its tribu-
taries noted. Of the ten considerable
streams which feed the Niyanza, the
largest and most important proved to be
the Shimceyn, in all probability the ulti-
mate source of the Nile. The details of
the discoveries thus auspiciously begun
portance of the region now for the first
time opened up to geography. 1t is
enough to note that, through Stanley's
daring energy and genius for command,
tie question which, more than any other,
Has vexed geographers and challenged
explorers for two thousand years has
been substantially settled.
In the meantime Cameron has taken
up the unfinished work of Livingstone,
and-spurred on no doubt by deter
mination not to be forestallcd by his
Yankee rival, as he was in the search for
Livingston--he has overcome the obsta-
cles that ,bafied thorsetsran explorer,
and accomplished perhaps the lopgest
journey ever made by any adventurer in
that benighted continent. And its re-
suits are as brilliant as the passage was
heroic. No other explorer ever crossed
the continent so near the equator; and
none save Stanley ever achieved so much
in so little time. His path lay through
the most difficult and dangerous part of
Africa, from Tanganyika to the mouth
Of the Congo; and when the story of the
passage is made known, it will, nay, it
must, present some of the most stirring
chapters of dashing adventure in the
history of African exploration.
One thing is certain: The theory of
Livingstone has been disproved; and not
the Nile, but the Congo, receives the
drainage of the great interior basin of
the continent. And Africa hides no
other secrets to compare with the two
which Stanley and Cameron have, with
in the same few months, manfully wrest-
ed from her jealous keeping.
Less significant geographically, but
OF far greater promise commercially, is
Professor Nordenskjold's discovery of
an open passage by sea between Europe
and northern Asia. The tract of country
thus brought into commercial communi-
cation with the rest of the world is q
vast and largely fertile region, much of
it splendidly timbered, traversed by
navigable rivers, and only waiting for
become densely peopled. According to
Professor Baers the valleys OF the Obi
Irtsch and the Yenisei exceed in extent
the combined areas watered by the Don,
Dnieper, Dniester, Nile, Po, Rhone,
Ebro, and all the other rivers flowing
into the Black sea, the Mediterranean,
and the sea of Marmora. The entire
region made directly accessible to com.
merce is estimated by DR.. Petsrmann to
embrace an area one-fourth greater than
all non-Russian Europe.
The attainment of the pole would give
greater renown to the explorer who
should succeed in reaching it; but the
consequences to humanity would be in
significant compared with those quite
certain to flow from this much needed
waterway to the heart of Asia.-Scien-
fj6c A91lepjc0,1