Show 4 v A WO A af k FRICK V T freight barges on the nile nature and man have contributed to the marvels of the dark continent prep prepared ved by national geographic society washington D C service T N AFRICA are natural won I 1 1 ders which almost chal lenge belief the sahara a vast waste of rock gravel and sand is so big it would hold the entire continental united states the reason it is a desert at all is simply stated that the wind blows in the wrong direction down from the dry heart of central asia instead of from the moisture div ing ocean the temperature changes so sharply at nightfall that travelers who have suffered in the blazing heat find themselves shivering under blankets this immense area of desolation served as a highly effective shield which long protected central africa from overland exploration from the north the zambezi rivers victoria falls whose native name means smoke that thunders are almost two and a half times as high as Nia niagara 0 aara lake tanganyika is the worlds longest freshwater fresh water lake and nearby lake victoria is larger in area than any of the five great lakes of north america except superior the nile is a river so long that it would reach from new york to far beyond the north pole the emperor nero sent an expedition to discover its source but the effort failed and not until 1862 was it ascertained that the white nile had its beginnings among the mountains and huge lakes of the congo tan sanyika borderland four thousand miles of nile from the source of the hagera which flows into lake victoria and which may be regarded as the ultimate starting point nile river water flows about miles before reaching the mediterranean heavy seasonal rainfall at the headwaters of the blue nile in the mountains of ethiopia mainly causes the annual flood which has irrigated the fields of egypt for countless centuries the marvelous nile drains a million square miles in its long iona and useful flow through desert lands the nile loses so much moisture that only a feeble stream actually reaches the sea in fact at low water special dams help to keep the mediterranean from flowing into the river instead of enormous pyramids erected by long vanished monarchs modern men through the enterprise of the british have built along the nile huge dams to harness it for irrigation and power purposes the aswan A swan dam in egypt impounds nore more than five billion tons of water from elephants and gorillas to butterflies there is no end to the wonder of natural life still rich although some of the most interesting te species have been decimated by thoughtless hunting besides big game there are termites that build anthills ant hills the height of a small house driver ants that destroy every living thing in their path tsetse flies whose bite gives men sleeping sickness and dooms domestic cattle to sudden death snakes that eject their venom aiming for the eyes to blind him trees that store UP water to tide them over the dry season A man made wonder is the worlds deepest gold mine near johannesburg han the city built on gold down down it goes to a depth of feet more than a mile lile and a half in quest of the precious yellow metal work was begun not long ago on an air condi dioning and cooling system for this abysmal maze of shaft sand passages an elephant trail through the wil der cerness ness a traffic filled street in a b bustling city the pyramids modern universities professors pygmies pygmy es whites and blacks and eve every ry shade between a gasoline station in the desert a motor cars honk a hyena enas s laugh all these are modern africa over it all the lines of transport are being constantly improved and extended as the european powers which control all but a tiny fraction of this continent as big as three eu ropes seek to tap to the full its immense resources of mineral wealth and tropical produce air and rail transportation comfortable british air liners regularly fly mail and passengers from london to capetown miles away in in nine days while a white hunter on safari in the big game country with 40 blacks takes about the same length of time to travel miles the french and belgians are planning to blaze another long air route diagonally across the continent from the barbary states to the belgian congo and faraway far away madagascar by train one may ride from the cape to the congo or across africa from lobito jobito angola on the west coast to beira mozambique on the east on a new railway bridge one of the longest in the world trains sweep across the broad zam bezi river at sena mozambique replacing slow flat bottomed ferry in french equatorial africa connects the congo river systems thousands of miles of navigable waters with the sea at pointe noire the purple of france covers a larger area than the color of any other nation an empire nearly 19 times the size of the home country but much of it consists of desert britaina Brit ains pink regions are much more populous only three areas comprising about one fourteenth of the total of africa remain as separate native nations ethiopia in a diplomatic sense egypt and liberia with the aid of the famous foreign legion france controls some of af ricas most warlike peoples the keynote of its policy has been to cause a minimum of disturbance of the customs of the natives from its far flung colonies it obtains such products as groundnuts ground nuts cotton palm oil fruit cocoa rubber tobacco wheat timber wine and hides britaina Brit ains colonies developed both france and great britain britain benefited extensively from the elimination of germany as one of the colonizers of africa the world war raged in many parts of this continent and even a naval battle was fought in the heart of africa when enterprising britons dragged boats through the jungle and broke t the he german grip on lake tanganyika A glance at the map shows how the territories of britain have been consolidated forming a highly im important and strategic right of way from top to bottom of the continent since the british influence is strong also in egypt the uniting factor in this string of possessions was tanganyika formerly german east africa the british in possession of some of the richest areas of the continent have been tireless in their development in south africa gold and diamonds have P played major roles on the nile irrigation projects have proved successful and quantities of cotton are produced in the anglo egyptian sudan and uganda yenya kenya is growing large quantities of coffee and the west african possessions yield tropic products such as oil palm nuts cocoa copra and groundnuts ground nuts tiny gambia alone dollars ships more than a million worth of peanuts a year the british islands of 7 zanzibar and bemba the bulk of the worlds cloves yield belgium third on the list of african landholders possesses in the congo untold resources of belgian minerals and tropical produces produce in m ang palm oil rubber nee c luding and coffee vory ivory cotton cocoa |