ngest lakes in the world, has been in
use for seventeen years since missionary Hore made his boat journey of
one thousand miles around its coasts, but the new map of the Moore
expedition now being introduced gives the main axis of the lake a more
northeast and southwest direction. The Hore map has met the fate that
usually overtakes the early surveys of every region. It rendered good
service as long as it was the best map; but the Moore expedition had
first-rate appliances for computing longitudes, and as Captain Hore
lacked these, it is not strange that his map has been found to be
defective.

The world has been treated to many geographical surprises in the course
of this incessant transformation of the map of the continent. Many of us
may remember in our school geographies, the particular blackness and
prominence of the Kong Mountains, extending for two hundred miles
parallel with the Gulf of Guinea. They were accepted on the authority of
Mungo Park, Caillie, and Bowditch, all reputable explorers who had not
seen the mountains, but believed from native information that they
existed. The French explorer, Binger, in 1887 sought in vain for them.
Later explorers have been unable to find them. They are, in fact, a
myth, and will be remembered chiefly as a conspicuous instance of
geographic delusion. It had long been supposed that the navigation of
the Niger River, the third largest river in Africa, was permanently
impaired by the Bussa Rapids, about one hundred miles in length, where
Mungo Park was wrecked and drowned. But Major Toutee, a few years ago,
when assailed by hostile natives, made a safe journey with his boats
through the rapids; and Captain Lenfant, in 1901, carried 500,000 pounds
of supplies up the river and through the rapids to the French stations
between Bussa and Timbuktu. He had a small, flat-bottomed steamboat and
a number of little boats propelled by fifty black paddlers. He says
that by the land route he would have required 12,000 porters, and they
would have been one hundred and thirty days on the road.

It was believed that a land portage would always be necessary between
the sea and the Zambesi, above the delta, till 1889, when Mr. Rankin
discovered the Chinde branch of the delta, so broad and so deep that
ocean vessels may ascend it and exchange freight with the river craft.

It has been found that more water pours into the ocean through the
Congo's mouth, which is six miles wide, than from all