In
That Address, He Expressed Opinions Upon The Geological Structure And
The Races Of Central Africa, Which Preceded Those That I Formed When At
The Albert Lake.
It is with intense interest that I have read the
following extract since my return to England:
-
"In former addresses, I suggested that the interior mass and central
portions of Africa constituting a great plateau occupied by lakes and
marshes from which the waters escaped by cracks or depressions in the
subtending older rocks, had been in that condition during an enormously
long period. I have recently been enabled, through the apposite
discovery of Dr. Kirk, the companion of Livingstone, not only to fortify
my conjecture of 1852, but greatly to extend the inferences concerning
the long period of time during which the central parts of Africa have
remained in their present condition, save their degradation by ordinary
atmospheric agencies. My view, as given to this Society in 1852, was
mainly founded on the original and admirable geological researches of
Mr. Bain in the colony of the Cape of Good Hope. It was, that, inasmuch
as in the secondary or mesozoic age of geologists, the northern interior
of that country was occupied by great lakes and marshes, as proved by
the fossil reptile discovered by Bain, and named Dicynodon by Owen, such
it has remained for countless ages, even up to the present day. The
succeeding journeys into the interior, of Livingstone, Thornton and
Kirk, Burton and Speke, and Speke and Grant, have all tended to
strengthen me in the belief that Southern Africa has not undergone any
of those great submarine depressions which have so largely affected
Europe, Asia, and America, during the secondary, tertiary, and quasi
modern periods.
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