The Coolidge examiner. [volume] (Coolidge, Ariz.) 1930-current, 1938-03-17

Gold. Down, down 1t goes to a
depth of $3.50 feet-more than a
mile and a haf-in quest of the
precious yellow metal. Work was
begun not long ago on an air-condi-
tioning and cooling system for this
abysmal maze of shafts and pas
sages.
An elephant trail through the will
derness, a traflic-filled street in a
busting city, the Pyramids, modern
universities, professors, pygmies,
whites and blacks and every shade
between, a gasoline station in the
desert, a motor cars honk, a n.y.
ena's laugh-all these are modern
Africa.
Over it all, the lines of transport
are being constantly improved and
extended, as the European powers,
which control all but a tiny fraction
of this continent as big as three Eu-
ropes, seek to tap to the fun its
immense resources Of mineral
wealth and tropical produce.
Air and Rail Transportation.
Comfortable British air liners reg
ularly fly mail and passengers from
London to Capetown, 7,700 miles
away, in nine days. while white
hunter on safari in the big-game
country, with 40 blacks, takes about
the same length of time to travel
$50 miles. The French and Belgians
are planning to blaze another long
air route diagonally across the con-
tinent from the Barbary states to
the Belgian Congo and far-away
MAZDA gascar.
BY train one may ride from the
Cape to the Congo. or across Africa
from Lobito, Angola. on the west
coast, to Beira, Mozambique, on
the east. On a new railway bridge,
one of the longest in the world,
trains sweep across the broad Fam
bezi river at Sena, Mozambique, re-
placing slow, fiat-bottomed ferry
boats. A new 313-mile railway
in French Equatorial Africa con-
meets the Congo river systems
thousands of miles of navigable wa
tiers with the sea at Pointe Noire.
The purple of France covers a
larger area than the color of any
other nation-an empire nearly 10
times the size of the home country
but much of it consists of desert.
Only three areas, comprising
about one-fourteenth Of the total Of
Africa, remain as separate native
nations-Ethiopia. Tin diplomat
ic sense) Egypt. and Liberia.
With the aid of the famous Foreign
Legion, France controls some of AT
rica's most warlike peoples The
keynote of its policy has been to
cause a minimum of disturbance of
the customs of the natives. From
its far-fung colonies it obtains such
products as groundnutS, cotton
palm oil. fruit. cocoa. rubber. to-
bacco, wheat, timber. wine and
hides.
Britain's Colonies Developed.
Both France and Great Britain
benefited extensively from the elm
ination of Germany as one of the col
onizers of Africa. The World war
ragged in many parts Of this con-
tinent, and even a naval battle was
fought in the heart of Africa when
enterprising Britons dragged boats
through the jungle and broke the
German grip on Lake Tanganyika.
A glance at the map shows how
the territories of Britain have been
consolidated, forming a highly inn
portant and strategic right of way
from top to bottom of the CONT
nent, since the British influence is
strong also in Egypt. The uniting
factor in this string of possessions
was Tanganyika. formerly German
East Africa.
The British, in possession of some
of the richest areas of the continent,
have been tireless in their develop
ment- In South Africa, gold and
diamonds have played major roles.
On the Nile, irrigation projects have
proved successful, and quantities
of cotton are produced in the
Anglo-Egyptian Sudan and Uganda.
Kenya is growing large quantities of
coffee and the West African posses
sions yield tropic products. such as
oil palm nuts, cocoa, copra, and
groundnuts; tiny Gambia alone
ships more than a million dollars
worth of peanuts a year. The Brit
ish islands of Zanzibar and Pemba
yield the bulk of the world cloves.
Belgium, third on the list of Afri-
can landholders, possesses in the
Belgian Congo untold resources of
minerals and tropical produce, in
GLIDING palm oil, rubber. rice,
ivory. cotton, cocoa and coffee.
What gold and diamonds have been
to South Africa, copper promises for
the Congo, and much Of the rapid de-
velopment that has taken place
there has been aimed at tapping
the rich deposits of the metal