It Is Scarcely Possible, Therefore, That The Latter Point Can Be Less, Taking The Cataracts Into Consideration Than 1500 Feet Above The Sea, Whereas The Following Considerations Lead To The Belief That The Tchadda Is Not More Than 500 Feet In Height.

We learn from the information of Clapperton, confirmed and amplified by that of Lander, that there exists a ridge,

Which about Kano and Kashna, extends forth the Yeu to the Lake Tchadda on one side, and on the other the river of Soccatoo, which joins the Quorra at a distance from the sea of about 500 miles, measured in the manner above mentioned. A similar process of measurement gives a length of 1700 miles to the whole course of the Quorra, the sources of which, according to Major Laing, are about 1600 feet above the sea; the stream, therefore, has an average fall of something less than a foot in a mile in lines of 100 geographical miles. This would give to the confluence of the river of Soccatoo with the Quorra, a height of less than 500 feet above the sea, but as that confluence occurs above the most rapid part of the main stream, 500 feet seem to be very nearly the height.

As a knowledge of the origin and course of rivers, conducts in every country to that of the relative altitude and directions of its highlands, the late discoveries on the waters of Africa have thrown great light on its orography. The sources of the largest, or rather longest of its rivers, namely, the white or true Nile, now appears to be in a point nearly equidistant from the Indian and Atlantic Oceans in one direction, and from the Mediterranean and the Cape of Good Hope on the other. These central summits, it is fair to suppose, are at least as high as the snowy peak Samen, in Abyssinia, which is the culminating point towards the sources of the minor branch or Blue Nile, and that they are covered, therefore, with perpetual snow. From hence flow the White Nile, the Djyr, the Bahr Culla, the Congo, and several rivers of the coast of Zanguebar.

As a part of these great African Alps was described to Denham as lying beyond the mountain of Mendefy, the latter would seem to be an advanced northerly summit of them. The range is probably united to the eastward with the mountains of Abyssinia, and to the westward, terminates abruptly in some lofty peaks on the eastern side of the delta of the Quorra, but not till after it has sent forth a lower prolongation, which crosses the course of the Quorra nearly at right angles, and terminates at the end of 1500 miles, at the sources of the Quorra, Gambia, and Senegal. A minor counterfort advances from the central range to the northwestward, commencing about the Peak of Mendefy, and vanishing at the end of about 900 miles in the desert of the Tuaricks. It gives rise to the two Sharys, which flow in opposite directions to the Quorra and the Lake Tchadda, and further north to the streams which flow to the same two recipients from about Kano and Kashna.

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