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MISCELLANEOUS.

A Numerous Ancestry. —Fowler, the Phrenologist, in his work entitled Hereditary Descent, says that every human being on the face of the globe, is compelled, from a demand of nature, to have two parents, four grand parents, eight great grand parents, sixteen ancestors of the fourth generation back, thirty two fifth, two hundred and fifty-six of the eight, thirty-two thousand seven hundred and sixty-eight of the fifteenth, almost one million and fifty thousand of the twentieth,' and nearly one thousand and seventy-three millions of the thirtieth generation. The whole number of every one's ancestors for fifty generations, amounts to two thousand three hundred and sixty-two billions, seven hundred and forty-nine million, two hundred and fourteen millions, two hundred and fourteen thousand and forty-six (2,362,749,914,214,046) —a multitude, verily, which no man can number, no mind conceive! The blood of this vast host is running in the veins of every living mortal, and that reckoning back only fifty generations!

The South African Lake. —The Frontier Times gives some additional particulars respecting (his highly interesting discovery. The lake extends from north-east to southwest, having marks of flood or high water on its banks. According to the natives it took twenty-five days to travel round it. - A river which was followed by the party for about two hundred miles, flows into the lake, being about the size of the Clyde near its mouth. The country to be passed over in approaching the lake or the river, is an elevated and sandy plain, without any water for about one hundred and fifty miles, excepting such as was procured by the natives in holes dug by them, and from which the water was drawn by the the mouth, by means of a reed. On one occasion the travellers were three days without water, and people used to be sent a day or two in advance for the purpose of boring. On the banks of the lake there are trees of immense size, some of them be,ing seventy feet in the circumference. The natives about the lake speak a language quite different from the Bechuana, or any other known language spoken in South Africa. According to Mr. Oxwell the lake is situated in long. 2019 E., and'lat. 19*7 S., as originally stated by him and his brother discoverer Mr. Murray. The shore of the lake on which the explorers stood extended two days' journey to the N. W. There is a salt-pan in the vicinity of the lake, and in it .both hippopotami and alligators are found. Mr. M urray has taken his passage to England. His description of the country on the borders Of the newly-disco-vered lake is of a nature to excite the curiosity of the traveller, and the trader's love of gain. The water of the lake, where it was discovered and examined by Messrs. Murray and Oxwell, was perfectly fresh, and abounded with fish,on which (together with a kind of root resembling apotatoe, which grew wild,and was dug up in great abundance) the dense population inhabiting the shores of the lake principally subsisted. In fishing they use a net made of the native flax, and resembling the seine of the Europeans. Some tribes of the natives possess sheep and horned cattle in great number. Some of the natives gave the discoverers to understand that there was another lake extending still further inland.

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZSCSG18500717.2.7

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VI, Issue 517, 17 July 1850, Page 4

Word count
Tapeke kupu
560

MISCELLANEOUS. New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VI, Issue 517, 17 July 1850, Page 4

MISCELLANEOUS. New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VI, Issue 517, 17 July 1850, Page 4

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