The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1884-10-03
The Congo.

The Congo, unlike most other great
rivers, has no delta. When, by its
own labors of erosion of deposition, its
actual channel shall be so lar obstruct-
ed as to make fresh means Of exit de-
sirable, they will no doubt be found,
and the excavation of such auxiliary
branches is even suspected 10 have al
ready begun. But at present it dis
charges into the sea by single, I'M
broken estuary, seven ana one-half
miles across. IN which a sounding line
of 20 fathoms does not everywhere
touch bottom, and q current runs of
five 10 seven knots an hour. The
enormous volume of the outflow may,
from these data, be imperfectly esti-
mated: and, in point of tact, the Con-
90. although overmatched as regards
the length of its course by more than
one rival stream, stands second only to
the Amazon for the unvarying copious-
ness of its waters. Captain Burton
places at the surprising Inquire of at
least $500, 900 cubic feet per second the
volume of water borne by it; and the
90. Now the Mississippi, when at
the. height of its March flood, car
ries down no more than I,500,-
900; 1t sinks in November to
22S,000, and its mean dis
charge is $4,000 cubic fest a second;
while the Gauges has less than a third
of the contents of the giant stream OF
North America. Moreover, the Congo
never runs low. 1t swells, indeed. and
sinks, as the rainy and dry seasons sue
coed each other, but within relatively
narrow range of oscillation. Such eX-
treme inequalities as are observed in
the Nile and Niger are here partially
compensated by the alternating periods
of a.Guents drawing their stores from
opposite sides of the equator. At Be-
ma, accordingly, the difference between
the levels of the river in January, when
it is lowest, does not exceed four or
five feet. though higher up, in the mar
rows, it may amount to twelve, or even
sixteen. This noble stream was first
made known to Europe through the
enterprise of hardy Ortuguese navI-
gator. D.ogo Cam, commissioned by
Il Gao Ii. to extend the scope and en-
nance the glory of his reign by mari
time discovery, reached its mouth in
1884, and planted, IN token of Portu-
guese supremacy, an inscribed col
umn on its southern shore.
The river (Which has borne as
many names as the Moon god
dessJ hence became knewn as the Rio
DO Padrao, or River of the Pillar. But
in q chart of 1913 the name of the
Congo (Rio do ManicongOl ap-
peared. and has prevailed. 1t was de-
rived from the then powerful and we'll
native kingdom of Congo,
(Mani-Congo signifies "king" of
Congo.) since disintegrated into a null
titude of sordid chieftaiaships, through
which the stream flowed to the sea.
The euphonious appellation of the
81 aire'-a corruption of the 10 al
title Mad, "r1ver"-was first used by
De Barros in his decades" (l552,
and was consecrated by the verse of
CamoenS:
"Alli o p,ui grande RENO esta de Congo,
Primo ia convertible a fe de Christie,
POI oI.de o Zaire pass u claro lonso,
hOpeiOs anIilos nunca vistO.
Within the last few years Mr.. Stanley
has endeavored. but without success,
TO associate the Congo with the name
and eminent services of Livingstone:
while in its higher reaches-a striking
testimony to the narrow circumscrip-
ton of tribal horizons Its native .desig-
nations rival in number and are fire. |
quently borrowed from those of Its |
ribpfar,pS E'Ij0brrub Rpr.Pn