THE HEART OF AFRICA.

Resulting Angles.

The known elements of the triangle from which the distance of St. Elias from the ends of the base line may be determined are:

distance triangle

These data were sent from the field to the Secretary of the National Geographic Society, and, in connection with other measurements made at the same time, have been computed byMr. S. S. Gannett, of the United States Geological Survey. The results of the computation, so far as they relate to Mount St. Elias, are given below:

Computation of the Height of Mount St. Elias.

Mean elevation above sea level = 18099 ft.; or in round numbers 18,100 ft.

Mr. A. Lindenkohl, of the U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, and Mr. S. S. Gannett have each computed the geographic position of Mount St. Elias, using the azimuth and angle of elevation of the mountain obtained by the U. S. Coast Survey at Port Mulgrave in 1874,3and the elevation given above. Fromthese data the approximate position of Mount St. Elias was found to be:

3Report of the Superintendent of the U. S. Coast Survey for 1875, Appendix 10, pp. 157â€“188.

The computation by which these results were obtained is given below:

Computation of Geographic Position of Mount St. Elias.

4A,BandCare terms depending on the size and figure of the earth and the latitude of the place.

The geographic position of Mount St. Elias is of popular interest in connection with the boundaries of Alaska.

In the convention between Great Britain and Russia,5wherein the boundaries of Alaska are supposed to be defined, it is stated that the boundary, beginning at the south, after leaving Portland channel, shall follow the summit of the mountains situated parallel to the coast as far as the 141st meridian, and from there northward the said meridian shall be the boundary to the Arctic ocean. Whenever the summit of the mountains between Portland channel and the 141st meridian "shall prove to be at the distance of more than ten marine leagues from the ocean, the limit between the British possessions and the line of coast which is to belong to Russia, above mentioned, shall be formed by a line parallel to the windings of the coast and which shall never exceed the distance of ten marine leagues therefrom."

5Message from the President of the United States, transmitting Report on the boundary line between Alaska and British Columbia. 50th Congress, 2d session, Ex. Doc. No. 146, Senate, 1889.

As Mount St. Elias is approximately in longitude 140Â° 55' 30" west from Greenwich, as already shown, it is therefore only 4' and 30" of longitude or 2Â½ statute miles east of the boundary of the main portion of Alaska. Its distance from the nearest point on the coast is 33 statute miles. There is no coast range in southeastern Alaska parallel with the coast within the limits specified by the treaty, and the boundary must therefore be considered as a line parallel with the coast and ten marine leagues, or 34Â½ statute miles, inland. The mountain is thus one and one-half miles south of the boundary and within the territory of the United States. Its position is so near the junction of the boundary separating southeastern Alaska from the Northwest Territory with the 141st meridian that it is practically a corner monument of our national domain.

(Abstracts of two Lectures presented before the Society March 6 and March 13, 1891.)

The subject of Africa and its people has recently become a most interesting and popular one. We are but now beginning to realize the size and importance of Africa, as we are reminded that it contains nearly one-fourth part of the land area of the world; that it has mountains at least 1,000 feet higher than the most lofty American peaks; that the known extent of the Nile and the Congo now make them the rivals of the Yang-tse-Kiang and the Mississippi as the longest rivers in the world; that its central regions, instead of the great desert blank so long shown on our maps, is a rich and beautiful elevated region, having upon its heights a splendid collection of fresh-water lakes or inland seas, fertilizing by their outflowing streams the whole continent; and that it is known to contain over 250,000,000 people, or about one-seventh part of the world's population. It is called the "dark continent:" rather should it be called the "new world," in which our interest and responsibilityâ€”political, commercial and socialâ€”is rapidly growing.

For purposes of general description, there are three great divisions of the African continent and its peoples and affairs:

The northern division, stamped and characterizedâ€”men, manners and thingsâ€”by the orientalism of its conquering settlers, so intimately blended by blood, religion and character with the natives as to have become essentially African, its original peoples so thoroughly influenced by the incoming foreigners as to be now essentially oriental;

The southern division, overrun in more modern times by foreigners of other races, and having its own peculiar civilization and characteristics due to that influx; and

Central Africa, including all that portion of the continent lying between, say, the Albert Nyanza and the river Zambesi, and Zanzibar and the Congo mouth, and which, although no part now remains of it that is not nominally the territory either of the Congo Free state or some European power, is still almost entirely in the possession and occupation of its lawful owners, the native uncivilized tribes.

As well as this transverse political division of Africa, we may make what may be called a concentric analysis. Commencing with the outerskin, the 16,000 miles of African coast, we find upon it certain excrescences, which, if our examination went but skin-deep, might well lead us to regard Africa not as a "new," but as an "old, old" world. On the north and east the remains of ancient civilizations, Morocco, Tangier, Egypt, remind us of Africa's bygone grandeurâ€”remind us how very much of forms of beauty and secrets of science and art came to us in the birth of civilized Europe from or through Africa. On the south and west again, memorials of Phoenician, of Portuguese, of Dutch, English and American conquering visitors and adventurers remind us of the constant preying of the nations on the dark continentâ€”remind us, through certain prison castles still to be seen on the western coast, of the great world's crime, the slave trade. But on the outer surface of Africa other signs are to be read: North, south, east and west there are ports and roadsteads forested with the masts of the world's shipping conveying to Africa's every shore those products of the civilized world which, according to their nature for good or harm, are to influence and civilize the Africans; carrying away from her shore the land's productsâ€”a constant stream, increasing perhaps just now, but which has always been flowingâ€”of wool, cotton, oil, rich spices, dyes and medicinal and ornamental woods, india-rubber, gum-copal, ivory, precious stones, gold. Are these the products of a desert land inhabited only by a lazy and savage people?

Following our concentric analysis, the first layer behind the outer skin of Africa may be said to consist of a verdant slope, broad and luxuriant in the tropics, where nature herself has been lavish, narrower, but still ever widening, in the drier north and south, as the oriental and the European respectively advance their groves of fruit and fields of corn, maintained in luxuriance alike by the vapors of the sea and the down drainage from the higher lands, and from the same causes also malarious andunhealthy. In another sense, too, this outer belt is both rich and unhappy. Into it come those men and things representing "civilization" from afar. To it, from the interior, gravitate those of the natives who are influenced by contact with those men and things, deprived to a great extent of the old uncivilized condition and its innocencies and partially imbued with what of civilization has come to them. Mankind, too, in this outer belt is often only too rank and unhealthy in his character. It is truly "darkest Africa;" for, first, the slave trade and then the rum bottle have in many parts been the preponderating representatives to them of outer civilization.

The next layer is a step or terrace of flat sandy semi-arid country, narrow in the tropics, widening toward each extreme, until it bulges out in the north into the Sahara desert, in the south into the Kalahari, some parts always bare and sandy or covered with a sparkling saline or alkaline deposit, some parts forming broad savannas or prairies, bearing rich grasses in the rains, burnt bare in the dry season; others covered with thickets of thorns or stunted and crippled trees under the same variations of seasons. This is the land of the ostrich and the pelican, the scene of vast prairie fires or whirling dust spouts; it is the land also of the nomad man. Across the Sahara the wandering Arab leads his camels from oasis to oasis; amid the wastes of the Kalahari the homeless Bushman finds a congenial hunting territory; in the narrow, tropical parts such semi-nomads as the Somali, the Wamasai, and the Wagogo lead their cattle from place to place, as the grass and water serve them with the seasons.

This terrace or flat sandy belt being crossed, we come to the true central region of Africa, a long irregular oval-shaped elevation of mountain masses, spreading out in many places as vast plateaus and forming altogether that mysterious elevated region reported from time to time by old investigators as well as compilers of native reports as the Mountains of the Moon. In the crevices of this central mass, in rocky basins, in fathomless chasms, in vast depressions of the plateaus, lie those great natural rainwater tanks known as the central African lakes. On and around it are the richest and most beautiful and healthful countries. Spreading over it and around its beautiful waters are the most intelligent and industrious of the native African tribes, their native industry and enterprise yet almost undisturbed by thebusy excitement of civilization. Hence there may fairly be drawn something like a sample of the real African native character and condition. They live in families; among them the family tie and the rights of property are regarded; conscience pronounces criminal and offensive the same irregularities as are so regarded among civilized peoples; in stature and physical condition they come up to the best standards. I argue that the life and condition which presents this state of things after isolation for thousands of years from all we call civilized can scarcely be called evil or degraded.

Among these people, both pastoral and agricultural, are to be found in progress the germs at least of all the useful artsâ€”the procuring and working of both iron and copper, pottery-making, the spinning and weaving of cotton cloth, the very beautiful development of plaiting of all kinds of vegetal fibers into string, rope, mats, baskets and cloth; and where valuable materials and products are naturally confined to particular localities, as is the case sometimes with oil, salt, etc., it is manufactured and distributed. Too often are people described as lacking in industry who are not the same as ourselves; but it seems to me ridiculous that a man should be called lazy because he has ample leisure between his busy times, who has made with his own hands, from nature's absolutely raw material, his house, his axe and hoe and spear, his clothing and ornaments, his furniture, his corn mill, all things that he has, and who, though liable often in a lifetime to have to repeat that whole process over again, has the energy and enterprise to commence afresh. Too often have the same people been called savage and bloodthirsty who, through all experience and by all their traditions getting naturally to regard unintroduced armed strangers as enemies, have the same desperate energy to defend themselves and their own which, as displayed by our own ancestral relatives, we love to term patriotism and courage.

In a fairly central position on this great central elevation is the elongated basin surrounded by a mountain rim in the bottom of which, in a long chasm, lies Lake Tanganyika, in a position alike so central and so unique that I have termed it the Heart of Africa. Inside the mountain basin rim, the rainfall all converges into Tanganyika; outside, it all flows to the outer shores of the continent by the Nile, the Congo or the Zambesi. Fifteen years ago the waters of Lake Tanganyika, having very slowlygained upon the evaporation (the then only means of carrying off its surplus) attained to the height of the lowest gap in its rim and commenced to flow out, and thence its surplus water ever since has found an exit and now forms part of the Congo system. Tanganyika is 400 miles long and from 15 to 50 miles in width, and is 2,700 feet above the sea.

To leave, however, this very rough general description of Africa at this point would convey a wrong idea. We have described the verdant slope from the coast, the terrace of flatter country, the central elevation and its heart; now we may imagine a series of great ridges and furrows and other radial features diverging from the heart of Africa to its very shores, besides certain isolated ridges and peaks, some of them snow-clad, and certain isolated depressions forming lakes or swamps; first the three great furrows of the Nile, Zambesi and Congo and the three great ridges formed by their dividing water-sheds, and so on through fan-like expansions of rim or ridges and furrows until the previously described concentric formation, although still there, is considerably cut up.

The great central mountain mass, buttressed by its far-stretching ridges, formsthe backbone, from which, outward and downward, in intricate articulations, extends the complicatedbony skeletonof Africa.

Set like sparkling jewels in its crevices and depressions, the great lakes send forth the streams which, flowing through gaps in their surrounding mountain barriers, rushing through narrow channels, oozing slowly through elevated flats or bounding in beautiful cascades over steep steps, and carrying the vitalizing fluid in every direction through the length and breadth of Africa, formits system of circulation.

Bordering the great lakes and clustering on the slopes, forests of gigantic trees form theflesh and muscleof this great creation; preserved in perpetual verdure wherever water constantly remains and in long extending lines and network fringing the ever-winding banks of the streams, and finally joining with the verdant belt of the sea-coast to form the brilliantepidermisof the whole, and forming background and filling to the network of these prominent features, in broad concentric curves and in belts and patches, the more stunted thorny growth, long grass, broad savanna and sandy plain, ever changing in color and aspect.

The great new and beautiful world of Africa lies open beforeus; 250,000,000 intelligent and courageous people have become exposed to the influence, for good or evil, of the civilized races. What shall we do with it and them? Quite possible is it fairly and honestly so to explore and deal with both country and people as to develop its resources and benefit them, while adding to the world's treasury of comfort-bringing products and human brotherhood the riches and the friendship of a new continent; but it must be by peaceful and just measures and by honest trade with wholesome wares.

As a practical way of leading you in imagination to the heart of Africa, and as indicating the circumstances and experience upon which my observations on Africa are based, I shall describe one of my many journeys.

In the year 1882 I had the honor to be leader of the largest European expedition that has yet entered Africa, having in it, for instance, 200 more men than the Emin Pasha relief expedition. There were ten Europeans, all told, who represented survey and navigation, medicine, carpentry, blacksmithing, and other specially selected talent for the purpose of exploration and civilization, as well as those specially devoted to the teaching of Christianity, which was the ultimate aim of all. We entered Africa from the village of Saadani, on the eastern coast, opposite Zanzibar, our destination being the shores of Lake Tanganyika at Ujiji.

To make not only our progress sure, but work and residence at our destination safe and possible in such a land, we had stores of groceries, medicines, tools and clothing, and a large quantity of calico and other cloth, which forms the currency of the country, for the purchase of supplies and payment of wages to porters, servants and workmen.

The special locality to be worked being the countries surrounding Lake Tanganyika, to which that extensive and beautiful inland sea gives access, we carried with us also, for its navigation, a sailing boat built of steel, of the form of a sea-going life-boat, and constructed in small sections and pieces for transport. This boat I designed myself. Six of the sections were to travel onspecially constructed light carts, drawn by African natives, and the rest, in small pieces, were to be carried by the porters in the ordinary way.

The mode of travel was walking, except when now and then an invalid was carried in a hammock. The method of transport was by means of native porters, hundreds of whom devote themselves to this work. They are paid $5 per month as wages, payable at Zanzibar on their return to the coast, less such advance in kind as they may draw from their leader along the road. In addition, they get a regular allowance of two yards of white calico per seven days, each man, as barter with which to obtain food.

The organization and start of such a party took some time, and parties of from 100 to 300 were dispatched along the road as things were ready, until, when I started with the final rear guard, we had on the road over 900 of these porters, with their headmen and petty officers, all under complete organization.

The first start of the boat-section carts was the scene of apparent disaster. The men, wild with excitement and uniting their shouts with those of onlookers, were beyond all restraint for the moment, and as they rounded a sharp turn to get out of the village of Saadani, over went the carts, one after the other, on their sides; and it was some time before I could train the men to steer more carefully or to move gently down a declivity. In time, however, the whole thing worked well. The fore compartment of the boat, going stem first, often forced its own way through masses of brush and creeper, helping to clear the way for the narrower sections, whose carts insinuated themselves through surprisingly small gaps. The men themselves were most zealous in the service, and as we emerged from lengthy stretches of jungle, ascended steep river banks, or jolted whole days over rugged stony places unharmed, we made up our minds that, these carts would "go anywhere." In twenty days we reached Upwapwa, 200 miles from the coast, and joined an advance party awaiting us; and after a few days rest and reorganization, we started once more westward.

The first village beyond, in the country of Ugogo, was thirty miles off. The first day was a comparatively easy march to a watering place, but the next two days gave us tough work. The thick, tangled, thorny scrub became quite dense, and for those two days we had to cut our way through it foot by foot. Hourafter hour the twang of the sword-bayonets and the thud of the axes were almost the only sounds to be heard till the train of carts moved slowly on as the way was opened. Toward evening of the second day we followed a narrow pass along the side of a rocky river bed, stout, inflexible trunks and branches here projecting into our path. On some of these ebony bars the axes resounded as on an anvil, and they yielded only to the more patient saw. As the sun descended we began to flag, but help was at hand; for a party coming back to us from the camp ahead with food and water, we picked up strength and spirit and reached camp late in the evening.

The level plains of Ugogo, which here represent the flat, open step or terrace to which I have referred in the general description of Africa, enabled us to make a week or so of splendid and comfortable marches. Ugogo passed, there lay before us the much-dreaded wilderness, so-called, of the Magunda-Mkali, separated from Ugogo by a steep, rocky ascent, which we could only tackle one cart at a time, and we soon came to a point so rugged with broken rocks that we could proceed no further; but the sections were unlashed, the carts taken to pieces, and all handed or dragged across the difficult place and put together again beyond. Over the scrubby, rugged hill and dale of Magunda-Mkali, without inhabitants, 20 to 25 miles a day was often made; every man knew the necessity of pushing on for food and water, and the danger, from wild beasts or wandering highwaymen, of lagging in the rear.

On, on, went the novel train, through weary miles of forest, across the scorched plain, rattling over the hard sun-baked footprints of the elephant and rhinoceros; on through grassy glades where the nimble antelope bounded, scared out of our path, and the zebra and giraffe were startled by the rattling of these strange disturbers of their solitude; on still, through miles of swamp, with its croaking legions; on through scenes of surpassing beauty, bright flowers and gleaming birds and butterflies; on past the bleaching bones of other travelers waylaid or exhausted, till the sun creeps up high overhead and eager glances are cast at green spots where water once had been; on, till the pace grows slow with weariness and thirst, and still on, till it revives again as the welcome messenger from the front appears in sight with water or the camp-fires tell of food and rest.

Completing this difficult section of the journey and mountingto the beautiful forests and numerous villages of Unyamwesi, we had arrived upon the central heights of the continent, which everything around us bespoke its best part; the clearer, more healthy air, the rich land, the open forests, the numerous and industrious people, all spoke eloquently of a better and brighter state of things in the interior of Africa than on its outside.

At Urambo we elicited the pleased surprise of our friend, the famous chief Mirambo. Said Mirambo, laying his hand emphatically on one of the boat sections, "This boat and these carts are mine, and all Unyamwesi is yours." It was his way of expressing sympathy and admiration of what he considered to be a very wonderful enterprise, and we left him pondering more deeply than ever on the doings of the "white men."

The rains were now at hand and the country rich and verdant; we hastened on with all speed possible to enable us to cross the Malagarasi river before it should be too swollen. Emerging from elevated forest land to a view of the valley of the river, it appears like a vast level expanse of harmless grass, but the swift river is flowing in the bottom. The toll required by the natives being paid, we descended to the river through the thick grass. We crossed the river in tiny dug-out or bark canoes managed by the natives. One old man, a leader among these ferrymen, we had especial cause to notice; we called him "the old admiral." He wore a curious skull cap apparently made of bladder, and presented a most odd appearance. To him we paid a special fee of propitiation for the boatmen. As we proceeded down toward the river the first sign of it among the long grass was quiet shallow water on the path; this grew deeper and deeper as we walked on until we were immersed to the armpits, the grass rising avenue-like overhead. We emerged upon a small island or rising ground, and the river proper was before us. On this little eminence stood "the old admiral" superintending all. The porters and their ordinary loads all crossed in the usual way, two or three at a time in the little canoes. The two large carts, with the bow and stern compartments of the boats, were floated along the watery avenue by the buoyancy of their tank-like loads; the others came, sections and carts, separately. The fare for each load was one yard of calico, but when the carts appeared there was general astonishment among the ferrymen, who showed signs of clearing off altogether; "the old admiral" alone was unmoved; his stolid countenance showed no sign, but a deep bass growl,"Eight yards, eight yards for these!" expressed at once his nonchalance and his determination; and eight yards we had to pay. All was safely got over in a day. Two of the bark canoes were lashed together with poles across, and one section or one cart at a time laid on top, and thus all was carried across.

Obstacles which further back would have been regarded as great hindrances were now made little of; success seemed assured to all, and the men even began to rehearse their triumphal entry into Ujiji. One more difficult river, the Lusugi, we had to cross. We reached its banks, down a rocky descent, late one night in a heavy fall of rain. We waited an hour or two next morning till the river had somewhat subsided, and then commenced work. Two or three volunteers swam across with a stout rope, which was then hauled tight across the stream. The porters, holding this rope in one hand, slowly but surely made their way across. Then the carts and sections were attached to a block running on the rope, and so, carefully attended by two or three men, were floated over in safety.

Ujiji was now only a few marches ahead. The view of the lake was caught at last, a narrow strip of its waters gleaming in the sun in the distance, and next morning we slowly marched into Ujiji in a compact body. The boat was duly launched and has now been for years at work on Lake Tanganyika in the cause of civilization and Christianity.

Thecompletionof this journey, however, was but thecommencementof a still larger enterprise in the region reached. Stations were established among the tribes on the lake shores; a larger vessel, with steam power, was built and launched on the lake, and a substantial mission was established and is still at work at a point which is only 400 miles from that point on the Congo river accessible to the steamers of the missions there.

All the work I have described was done at the expense of the London Missionary Society.

(Accepted April 3, 1891.)

Washington, D. C., April 3, 1891.

TO THEBOARD OFMANAGERS OF THENATIONALGEOGRAPHICSOCIETY,Washington, D. C.

Gentlemen:Your Committee, instructed "to consider the advisability of further Alaskan exploration by the Society this year and if deemed advisable, to consider and report upon ways and means for accomplishing it," respectfully submit the following report:

The general question of desirability has been decided affirmatively by the Board of Managers; it therefore is inferred that the question of advisability may be taken as involved in that of ways and means.

In outlining a plan of work, concerning which such inquiry is to be made, it has been found necessary, in the lack of formulated opinion by the Society, to make assumptions as to what should be its purpose and policy in undertaking exploration. It is assumed tentatively that in order best to further the object for which the Society is organized, namely, "the increase and diffusion of geographic knowledge," the aim in exploration should be not so much to promote the growth of science as to diffuse a general interest in geographic work in its several departments, and, adhering to the principle of attractiveness, to increase the sum of knowledge by discovery and by the addition of general and elementary facts rather than by detailed investigation, for appreciation of which scientific training must be presupposed. It is furthermore believed that the policy of the Society should be to invite coÃ¶peration, offering opportunity at the same time for special study in related sciences; to effect the organization and devise the plan, and itself to take part directly in field work only so far as may be necessary to initiate and promote it.

Your Committee find that apparently it will be practicable,with coÃ¶peration, for the Society to extend this year the exploration work of last year in the vicinity of Mount St. Elias. Specifically it is recommended that the plan be to determine directly, from a long base line near the coast, the height of the mountain, to ascend it, to observe systematically the unique phenomena of physical geography of the Malaspina glacier from Icy bay to the initial point of last year's exploration, and to explore the Seward glacier to its head if deemed advisable after the ascent of the peak.

In view of the fact that it is the purpose of the Coast and Geodetic Survey to carry the international boundary survey into this region within one or two years, it is considered inexpedient for the Society to undertake extended topographic work. It is, however, submitted, as a principle which this Society should emphasize in projecting exploration, that facts of physical geography have minimum value and may lead to false conclusions unless correlated through their space relations; and it is recommended that the expedition aim always to employ such means as may be practicable for making record of its course and of its observations in approximate geometric relation to surroundings.

Conditional offers of coÃ¶peration have been made by the Revenue Marine Service, the Geological Survey, the Coast and Geodetic Survey, and the Century Company of New York. Transportation from Seattle to Alaska and return, it is thought, may be secured on the steamer Corwin, and that vessel's commander, Captain Hooper, has expressed a desire to extend his coast-line exploration of last year by making a survey of Disenchantment bay. The Geological Survey offers to detail Mr. Russell to conduct the expedition, and to bear the expense of a number of field hands and of their equipment. The Coast and Geodetic Survey has expressed a desire to aid, if practicable, by beginning boundary work in the same field this year, and incidentally to do other surveying with special relation to the work of the expedition. The Century Company offers to send an artist experienced in Alpine work and to pay the greater portion of his expenses. The opportunity for study of the fauna and flora of the region it is thought should not be neglected.

The cost to the Society, wholly in items of field expense otherwise unprovided for, which may be considered as the cost of enabling the combination to work as one organization, is estimated at $500.

The expedition should leave Seattle in the latter part of May, aiming to reach Icy bay by the first of June, and field work should close by the end of September.

Your committee consider further exploration in Alaska by the Society this year as practicable, and recommend that the proposed expedition be authorized, and that Mr. Russell be at once invited to organize and conduct it, under the auspices of the Society.

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