The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-06-08
CHANGES ON AFRICAN MATS,
It is Difficult to Keep Them Ahiess
 of the News from ExploTsts.

MT. Wauters. editor of Le Mouvemehi Geogra phique says that constant revis1s of his large map Of the Conso Das.n ts necessary in order to keep It in line Wi.r the best geograpnlcal inlorHatioh' So's
 The New York Sun.
 One or more new survey or route maps
 arc received from Africa every monens:
 Each of them is likely to rectify an -oio
 position. complete the course oi riyss' ,,,,
 or bring entirely new information con
 corning areas that were white on tn
 olde.. maps. He mentions three source.
 of information, all received within tht past few weeks, which make imPo tans T, contributions to the mapping or tnis paf' of Africa. One cf them i5 a table of geogra9hics positions determined astronomicaliy bs |. tho Marchand mission in central Airlca | The table has just been published Tn La Geographic. Two scientific nembers of the expedition were especially detailed l to have charge of the astronomical ooser- vations tu fix the longitude of geographil places.
 have been made m this part of Africa | the positions of large number or places l having been fixed with < very near ap'
 proximation to the ,drng frI,n from the car. at | Her maps is that the lower course of tho 1 Mouangi River is now placed aSout four l teen miles west of the position hesAes- | fore assigned to it. thus sensioiy urr. .i- I l the Mobangi and the Sanga rivers | The Marchand expedition also deter mined the line of water parting between l the Congo and the Niie, and made com plerely new surveys of the Bomu afflu' | ent of the Congo, the Such affuent of the l Nile and the tributaries of the Bahre 1 Gazal. All this fresh information makes a great deal of work for the cartographer who brings his map up to date.
 | If will be many wears, however. before really good maps can be made or the | whole or large parts of Africa. The only portions of the great continent now map ped from detailed surveys based on tri- angulation are Algeria and Tunis. the | delta of the Nile. the region around Mas sowa in the Italian possessions, ana a smal area along the Nile between Wadi Halfa and Dongola.
 Chains of triangulation nave been ex- tended through South, Africa from the south coast to Kimberley and the orange
 River Colony. but the triangulations have not been extended through the wide re- g.ons between the chains.
 The longest stretch of coast line or which accurate maps may now be made extends unbrokenly from the west border of Algeria eastward along the Medlter- ranean and then down the east coast as far as Lindi. south of Zanzibar. The en- tire south coast from the Orange River
 on the Atlantic to Inhambane on the ln-
 dian Ocean is also well mapped. and so
 are the shores along the Gulf of Guinea.
 Short stretches of. other parts of the
 coast line have been adequately sur
 veyed. but there are still many hundred
 of miles of the African coasts of which
 correct map has not yet been made.
 It is a curious fact that no detailed
 survey has yet been made of any part
 of the Congo River, and of only little
 of the Nile. On the other hand, about
 l,5OO miles of the Niger River and its
 large branch. the Benue tributsry. have
 been surveyed in detail. as we'll as long
 stretches of the Senegal and ogowe rivers.
 We often hear that there are today only
 a few large areas in Africa which are
 unexplored. This is true. though the un-
 explored districts of the Sahara include
 at least two-thirds of the desert. But
 the smaller regions between the numer-
 GUS rivers that have been visited by an
 explorer. and of which almost nothing
 is known. number at least fifty or sixty, most of them being south of the Sahara and extending to the tropic of Capricorn.
 Tho whole of South Africa south of the tropic may now be said to be fairly well known, though detailed surveys have not been carried so far that very satisfac- tOrV mans are as vet aAtainaDle,