What Stanley did for Geography.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume I, Issue 21, 13 November 1879, Page 4

What Stanley did for Geography.

(Y ram Harper's Magazine.)

Stanley gave nine months to the ex. ploration of the Luaiaba, or rather to the Livingstone, as he called it, and as it must he called for all time. Before he went out on this mission we knew there were two rivers—the Congo and the Luaiaba. We knew that the Congo ran into the Atlantic Ocean, hut its source was lost in the cataracts. The Portugal's- • ••••.• ■ content to scatter a few sctUe a a >out its mouth, and trade fov •• J ivory along its hanks. P> w . i -.known river beyond the ■ '•» a knew there was a river ’.Jo of Africa cal V-d the .‘.fv.; v c knew it had a swift current, that it was a river of Luge volume. Ih.i' hovond chat ■vo know nothing. Ivo .1 1 a wl 'CiC then:others hua ar :ii;er. ’ . l \;i; v (-v o v,as convinced that it ran into the Nile, was ready the source i"! the Nile ; and who would question even the theory of so great a master i What Stanley did was to show th it the Congo and Luaiaba were one and tne same ; that the Congo, instead of losing itself among the rapids, was to force into the very heart of the continent; that the Luaiaba, instead of going north and submitting to the usurping waters of the Nile, was to turn to the wes: and force its way to the sea ; that the two rivers were to disappear from the map, and be known as one river —the Livingstone ; that this river was to be 2,900 miles in lencryv.; ykfr.Lfor_p£irrly ten degrees of it was to be coti 2tinuously navigable ; that its volume was to be I,Boo*ooo cubic feet a second ; that the eontire area it drains is 800,000 square m*lea ; in other words, that here was an / immense waterway 3,000 miles into tlvre centre of Africa, navigable, with ■Wc;'exception of two breaks, which engineering science can easily surmount—a waterway into a tropical empire, rich in woods aud metals, and gracious soil, in fruits aud grains, the sure home of a civilr *Wied empire in the years to come. As Pethe eminent German geographer, put* B it, Stanley’s work was to unite the of African exploration—the achievements of Livingstone, Burton, SpekaS Du Chaillu, Baker,. Cameron, of all the vieroic men who had gone before him—inV"° one consecutive whole, just as Bismarcfe unitedthe fragments of the German peoiple, lying about under various’ princes alffd dukes, into one grand and harmonious empire. Even as Bismarck had createoi imperial Germany, so Stanley created geographical Africa.