The Project Gutenberg eBook of Views of Nature, by Alexander Von Humboldt

19. p. 8.—“As if America had emerged later from the chaotic covering of waters.”

The acute natural inquirer Benjamin Smith Barton, expresses himself thus accurately:^[EE]—“I cannot but deem it a puerile supposition, unsupported by the evidence of nature, that a great part of America has probably later emerged from the bosom of the ocean than the other continents.” I have already elsewhere treated of this subject in a memoir on the primitive nations of America:^[EF]—“The remark has been too frequently made by authors of general and well-attested merit that America was in every sense of the word a new continent. The luxuriance of vegetation, the vast mass of waters in the rivers, and the continued activity of great volcanoes, confirm the fact (say these writers,) that the still agitated and humid earth is in a condition approximating more closely to the chaotic primordial state of our planet than the old continent. Such ideas appeared to me, long before my travels in those regions, no less unphilosophical than at variance with generally acknowledged physical laws. These imaginary representations of an earlier age and a want of repose, and of the increase of dryness and inertia with the increased age of our globe, could only have been framed by those who seek to discover striking contrasts between the two hemispheres, and who do not endeavour to consider the construction of our terrestrial planet from one grand and general point of view. Are we to regard the southern as more recent than the northern part of Italy, simply because the former is almost constantly disturbed by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions? How inconsiderable, moreover, are the phenomena presented by our volcanoes and earthquakes, when compared with the convulsions of nature which the geognosist must conjecture to have occurred in the chaotic condition of our globe, when mountain masses were upheaved, solidified, or cleft asunder? Different causes must also occasion a diversity of effects in the forces of nature in parts of the earth remote from one another. The volcanoes in the new continent,” (of which I still count about twenty-eight,) “may probably have continued longer active, because the high mountain ridges on which they are erupted in rows upon long fissures are nearer to the sea, and because this vicinity appears to modify the energy of the subterranean fire, in a manner which, with few exceptions, has not yet been explained. Besides, both earthquakes and fire-erupting mountains act periodically. At present” (this I wrote forty-two years ago,) “physical disquietude and political repose prevail in the new continent, whilst in the old continent the calm repose of nature is contrasted with the dissensions of different nations. The time may however come, when this strange contrast between physical and moral forces may change its theatre of action from one quarter of the world to another. Volcanoes enjoy centuries of repose between their manifestations of activity; and the idea that in the older countries nature must be characterized by a certain repose and quietude, has no other foundation than in the mere caprice of the imagination. There exists no reason for assuming that one side of our planet is older or more recent than the other. Islands, as the Azores and many flat islands of the Pacific, which have been upheaved by volcanoes, or been gradually formed by coral animals, are indeed more recent than many plutonic formations of the European central chain. Small tracts of land, as Bohemia and Kashmeer, and many of the valleys in the moon, inclosed by a ring of mountains, may continue for a long time under the form of a sea, owing to partial inundations, and after the flowing off of these inland waters, the bottom, on which plants would gradually manifest themselves, might indeed be figuratively regarded as of more recent origin. Islands have been connected together into continental masses by upheaval, whilst other parts of the previously existing land have disappeared in consequence of the subsidence of the oscillating ground; but general submersions can, from hydrostatic laws, only be imagined as embracing simultaneously all parts of the earth. The sea cannot permanently submerge the vast lowlands of the Orinoco and the Amazon, without at the same time destroying our Baltic lands. Moreover the succession and identity of the floetz strata, and of the organic remains of plants and animals belonging to the primitive world, inclosed in those strata, show that several great depositions have occurred almost simultaneously over the whole earth.”^[EG]

20. p. 8.—“The Southern Hemisphere is cooler and more humid than the Northern.”

Chili, Buenos Ayres, the southern part of Brazil, and Peru, enjoy the cool summers and mild winters of a true insular climate, owing to the narrowness and contraction of the continent towards the south. This advantage of the Southern Hemisphere is manifested as far as 48° or 50° south lat., but beyond that point, and nearer the Antarctic Pole, South America is an inhospitable waste. The different degrees of latitude at which the southern extremities of Australia, including Van Diemen’s Island, of Africa, and America, terminate, give to each of these continents its peculiar character. The Straits of Magellan lie between the parallels of 53° and 54° south lat.; and notwithstanding this, the thermometer falls to 41° Fahr. in the months of December and January, when the sun is eighteen hours above the horizon. Snow falls almost daily in the lowlands, and the maximum of atmospheric heat observed by Churruca in 1788, during the month of December, and consequently in the summer of that region, did not exceed 52°.2 Fahr. The Cabo Pilar, whose turret-like rock is only 1394 feet in height, and which forms the southern extremity of the chain of the Andes, is situated in nearly the same latitude as Berlin.^[EH]

Whilst in the Northern Hemisphere all continents fall, in their prolongation towards the Pole, within a mean limit, which corresponds tolerably accurately with 70°, the southern extremities of America. (in Tierra del Fuego, which is so deeply indented by intersecting arms of the sea,) of Australia, and of Africa, are respectively 34°, 46° 30′ and 56° distant from the South Pole. The temperature of the unequal extents of ocean which separate these southern extremities from the icy Pole contributes essentially towards the modification of the climate. The areas of the dry land of the two hemispheres separated by the equator are as 3 to 1. But this deficiency of continental masses in the Southern Hemisphere is greater in the temperate than in the torrid zone, the ratio being in the former at 13 to 1, and in the latter as 5 to 4. This great inequality in the distribution of dry land exerts a perceptible influence on the strength of the ascending atmospheric current, which turns towards the South Pole, and on the temperature of the Southern Hemisphere generally. Some of the noblest forms of tropical vegetation, as for instance tree-ferns, advance south of the equator to the parallels of from 46° to 53°, whilst to the north of the equator they do not occur beyond the tropic of Cancer.^[EI] Tree-ferns thrive admirably well at Hobart Town in Van Diemen’s Land (42° 53′ lat.), with a mean annual temperature of 52°.2 Fahr., and therefore on an isothermal line less by 3°.6 Fahr. than that of Toulon. Rome, which is almost one degree of latitude further from the equator than Hobart Town, has an annual temperature of 59°.7 Fahr.; a winter temperature of 46°.6 Fahr., and a summer temperature of 86° Fahr.; whilst in Hobart Town these three means are respectively 52°, 42°.1, and 63° Fahr. In Dusky Bay, New Zealand, tree-ferns thrive in 46° 8′ lat., and in the Auckland and Campbell Islands in 53° lat.^[EJ]

In the Archipelago of Tierra del Fuego, having a mean winter temperature of 33° Fahr., and a mean summer temperature of only 50° Fahr., in the same latitude as Dublin, Captain King found “vegetation thriving most luxuriantly in large woody-stemmed trees of Fuchsia and Veronica;” whilst this vigorous vegetation, which, especially on the western coast of America (in 38° and 40° south lat.), has been so picturesquely described by Charles Darwin, suddenly disappears south of Cape Horn, on the rocks of the Southern Orkney and Shetland Islands, and of the Sandwich Archipelago. These islands, but scantily covered with grass, moss, and lichens, Terres de Désolation, as they have been called by French navigators, lie far to the north of the Antarctic Polar Circle; whilst in the Northern Hemisphere, in 70° lat., on the extremest verge of Scandinavia, fir-trees reach a height of more than 60 feet.^[EK] If we compare Tierra del Fuego, and more particularly Port Famine, in the Straits of Magellan, 53° 38′ lat., with Berlin, which is situated one degree nearer the equator, we shall find for Berlin, 47°.3 38°.9
62°.3; and for Port Famine, 42°.6 34°.7
50°.0 Fahr. I subjoin the few certain data of temperature which we at present possess of the temperate zones of the Southern Hemisphere, and which may be compared with the temperatures of northern regions in which the distribution of summer heat and winter cold is so unequal. I make use of the convenient mode of notation already explained in which the number standing before the fraction indicates the mean annual temperature, the numerator the winter, and the denominator the summer temperature.

Places.	South Latitude.	Mean Annual, Winter, and Summer Temperatures.
			54°.5
Sydney and Paramatta (New Holland)	33° 50′	64°.6
			77°.5

			58°.5
Cape Town (Africa).	33° 55′	65°.7
			73°.2

			52°.5
Buenos Ayres	34° 17′	62°.4
			73°.0

			57°.4
Monte Video	34° 54′	67°
			77°.5

			42°.1
Hobart Town (Van Diemen’s Land)	42° 45′	52°.5
			63°.0

			34°.7
Port Famine (Straits of Magellan)	53° 38′	42°.6
			50°.0

21. p. 9.—“One connected sea of sand.”

As we may regard the social Erica as furnishing one continuous vegetable covering spread over the earth’s surface, from the mouth of the Scheldt to the Elbe, and from the extremity of Jutland to the Harz mountains, so may we likewise trace the sea of sand continuously through Africa and Asia, from Cape Blanco to the further side of the Indus, over an extent of 5,600 miles. The sandy region mentioned by Herodotus, which the Arabs call the Desert of Sahara, and which is interrupted by oases, traverses the whole of Africa like a dried arm of the sea. The valley of the Nile is the eastern boundary of the Lybian desert. Beyond the Isthmus of Suez and the porphyritic, syenitic, and greenstone rocks of Sinai begins the Desert mountain plateau of Nedschd, which occupies the whole interior of the Arabian Peninsula, and is bounded to the west and south by the fruitful and more highly favoured coast-lands of Hedschaz and Hadhramaut. The Euphrates forms the eastern boundary of the Arabian and Syrian desert. The whole of Persia, from the Caspian Sea to the Indian Ocean, is intersected by immense tracts of sand (bejaban), among which we may reckon the soda and potash Deserts of Kerman, Seistan, Beludschistan, and Mekran. The last of these barren wastes is separated by the Indus from the Desert of Moultan.

22. p. 9.—“The western portion of Mount Atlas.”

The question of the position of the Atlas of the ancients has often been agitated in our own day. In making this inquiry, ancient Phœnician traditions are confounded with the statements of the Greeks and Romans regarding Mount Atlas at a less remote period. The elder Professor Ideler, who combined a profound knowledge of languages with that of astronomy and mathematics, was the first to throw light on this obscure subject; and I trust I may be pardoned if I insert the communications with which I have been favoured by this enlightened observer.

“The Phœnicians ventured at a very early period in the world’s history to penetrate beyond the Straits of Gibraltar. They founded Gades and Tartessus on the Spanish, and Lixus, together with many other cities on the Mauritanian coasts of the Atlantic Ocean. They sailed northward along these shores to the Cassiterides, from whence they obtained tin, and to the Prussian coasts where they procured amber found there; whilst southward they penetrated as far as Madeira and the Cape de Verd Islands. Amongst other regions they visited the Archipelago of the Canary Isles, where their attention was arrested by the Peak of Teneriffe, whose great height appears to be even more considerable than it actually is from the circumstance of the mountain projecting directly from the sea. Through their colonies established in Greece, especially under Cadmus in Bœotia, the Greeks were made acquainted with the existence of this mountain which soared high above the region of clouds, and with the ‘Fortunate Islands’ on which this mountain was situated, and which were adorned with fruits of all kinds, and particularly with the golden orange. By the transmission of this tradition through the songs of the bards, Homer became acquainted with these remote regions, and he speaks of an Atlas to whom all the depths of ocean are known, and who bears upon his shoulders the great columns which separate from one another the heavens and the earth,^[EL] and of the Elysian Plains, described as a wondrously beautiful land in the west.”^[EM] Hesiod expresses himself in a similar manner regarding Atlas, whom he represents as the neighbour of the Hesperides.^[EN] The Elysian Plains, which he places at the western limits of the earth, he terms the ‘Islands of the Blessed.’^[EO] Later poets have still further embellished these myths of Atlas, the Hesperides, their golden apples, and the Islands of the Blessed, which are destined to be the abode of good men after death, and have connected them with the expeditions of the Tyrian God of Commerce, Melicertes, the Hercules of the Greeks.

“The Greeks did not enter into rivalship with the Phœnicians and Carthaginians in the art of navigation until a comparatively late period. They indeed visited the shores of the Atlantic, but they never appear to have advanced very far. It is doubtful whether they had penetrated as far as the Canary Isles and the Peak of Teneriffe; but be this as it may, they were aware that Mount Atlas, which their poets had described as a very high mountain situated on the western limits of the earth, must be sought on the western coast of Africa. This too was the locality assigned to it by their later geographers Strabo, Ptolemy, and others. As however no mountain of any great elevation was to be met with in the north-west of Africa, much perplexity was entertained regarding the actual position of Mount Atlas, which was sought sometimes on the coast, sometimes in the interior of the country, and sometimes in the vicinity of the Mediterranean, or further southward. In the first century of the Christian era, when the armies of Rome had penetrated to the interior of Mauritania and Numidia, it was usual to give the name of Atlas to the mountain chain which traverses Africa from west to east in a parallel direction with the Mediterranean. Pliny and Solinus were both, however, fully aware that the description of Atlas given by the Greek and Roman poets did not apply to this mountain range, and they therefore deemed it expedient to transfer the site of Mount Atlas, which they described in picturesque terms, in accordance with poetic legends, to the terra incognita of Central Africa. The Atlas of Homer and Hesiod can, therefore, be none other than the Peak of Teneriffe, while the Atlas of Greek and Roman geographers must be sought in the north of Africa.”

I will only venture to add the following remarks to the learned explanations of Professor Ideler. According to Pliny and Solinus, Atlas rises from the midst of a sandy plain (e medio arenarum), and its declivity affords pasture to elephants, which have undoubtedly never been known in Teneriffe. That which we now term Atlas is a long mountain ridge. How could the Romans have recognised one isolated conical elevation in this mountain range of Herodotus? May the cause not be ascribed to the optical illusion by which every mountain chain, when seen laterally from an oblique point of view, appears to be of a narrow and conical form? I have often, when at sea, mistaken long mountain ranges for isolated mountains. According to Höst, Mount Atlas is covered with perpetual snow near Morocco. Its elevation must therefore be upwards of 11,500 feet at that particular spot. It seems to me very remarkable that the barbarians, the ancient Mauritanians, if we are to believe the testimony of Pliny, called Mount Atlas Dyris. This mountain chain is still called by the Arabs Daran, a word that is almost identical in its consonants with Dyris. Hornius,^[EP] on the other hand, thinks that he recognises the term Dyris in the word Ayadyrma, the name applied by the Guanches to the Peak of Teneriffe.^[EQ]

As our present geological knowledge of the mountainous parts of North Africa, which, however, must be admitted to be very limited, does not make us acquainted with any traces of volcanic eruptions within historic times, it seems the more remarkable that so many indications should be found in the writings of the Ancients of a belief in the existence of such phenomena in the Western Atlas and the contiguous west coast of the continent. The streams of fire so often mentioned in Hanno’s Ship’s Journal might indeed have been tracks of burning grass, or beacon fires lighted by the wild inhabitants of the coasts as a signal to warn each other of threatening danger on the first appearance of hostile vessels. The high summit of the “Chariot of the Gods,” of which Hanno speaks (the θεῶν ὄχημα), may also have had some faint reference to the Peak of Teneriffe; but farther on he describes a singular configuration of the land. He finds in the gulf, near the Western Horn, a large island, in which there is a salt lake, which again contains a smaller island. South of the Bay of the Gorilla Apes the same conformation is repeated. Does he refer to coral structures, lagoon islands (Atolls), and to volcanic crater lakes, in the middle of which a conical mountain has been upheaved? The Triton Lake was not in the neighbourhood of the lesser Syrtis, but on the western shores of the Atlantic.^[ER] The lake disappeared in an earthquake, which was attended with great fire-eruptions. Diodorus ^[ES] says expressly πυρὸς εκφυτήματα μεγάλα. But the most wonderful configuration is ascribed to the hollow Atlas, in a passage hitherto but little noticed in one of the philosophical Dialexes of Maximus Tyrius, a Platonic philosopher who lived in Rome under Commodus. His Atlas is situated “on the continent where the Western Lybians inhabit a projecting peninsula.” The mountain has a deep semi-circular abyss on the side nearest the sea; and its declivities are so steep that they cannot be descended. The abyss is filled with trees, and “one looks down upon their summits and the fruits they bear as if one were looking into a well.”^[ET] The description is so minute and graphic that it no doubt sprung from the recollection of some actual view.

23. p. 9.—“The Mountains of the Moon, Djebel-al-Komr.”

The Mountains of the Moon described by Ptolemy,^[EU] σελήνης ὄρος, form on our older maps a vast uninterrupted mountain chain, traversing the whole of Africa from east to west. The existence of these mountains seems certain; but their extent, their distance from the equator, and their mean direction, still remain problematical. I have indicated in another work ^[EV] the manner in which a more intimate acquaintance with Indian idioms and the ancient Persian or Zend teaches us that a part of the geographical nomenclature of Ptolemy constitutes an historical memorial of the commercial relations that existed between the West and the remotest regions of Southern Asia and Eastern Africa. The same direction of ideas is apparent in relation to a subject that has very recently become a matter of investigation. It is asked, whether the great geographer and astronomer of Pelusium merely meant in the denomination of Mountains of the Moon (as in that of “Island of Barley,” (Jabadiu, Java) to give the Greek translation of the native name of those mountains; whether, as is most probable, El-Istachri, Edrisi, Ibn-al-Vardi, and other early Arabian geographers, simply transferred the Ptolemaic nomenclature into their own language; or whether similarity in the sound of the word and the manner in which it was written misled them? In the notes to the translation of Abd-Allatif’s celebrated description of Egypt, my great teacher, Silvestre de Sacy,^[EW] expressly says, “The name of the mountains regarded by Leo Africanus as furnishing the sources of the Nile, has generally been rendered ‘Mountains of the Moon,’ and I have adhered to the same practice. I do not know whether the Arabs originally borrowed this denomination from Ptolemy. It may indeed be inferred that at the present day they understand the word قمر in the sense of moon, pronouncing it kamar; I do not think however, that such was the practice of the older Arabs, who pronounced it komr, as has been proved by Makrizi. Aboulfeda positively rejects the opinion of those who would adopt the pronunciation kamar, and derive the word from the name of the moon. As, according to the author of Kamous, the word komr, considered as the plural of اقمر, signifies an object of a greenish or dirty white colour, it would appear that some authors have supposed that this mountain derived its name from its colour.”

The learned Reinaud, in his recent excellent translation of Abulfeda (t. ii., p. i., pp. 81, 82), regards it as probable that the Ptolemaic interpretation of the name of Mountains of the Moon (ὄρη σεληναῖα) was that originally adopted by the Arabs. He observes that in the Moschtarek of Yakut, and in Ibn-Said, the mountain is written al-Komr, and that Yakut writes in a similar manner the name of the Island of Zendj (Zanguebar). The Abyssinian traveller Beke, in his learned and critical treatise on the Nile and its tributaries,^[EX] endeavours to prove that Ptolemy, in his σελήνης ὄρος, merely followed the native name, for the knowledge of which he was indebted to the extensive commercial intercourse which then existed. He says, “Ptolemy knew that the Nile rises in the mountainous district of Moezi, and in the languages which are spoken over a great part of Southern Africa (as, for instance, in Congo, Monjou, and Mozambique), the word moezi signifies the moon. A large tract of country situated in the south-west was called Mono-Muezi, or Mani-Moezi, i.e., the land of the King of Moezi (or Moon-land); for in the same family of languages in which moezi or muezi signifies the moon, mono or mani signifies a king. Alvarez ^[EY] speaks of the ‘regno di Manicongo,’ or territory of the king of Congo.” Beke’s opponent, Ayrton, seeks the sources of the White Nile (Bahr el-Abiad), not as do Arnaud, Werne, and Beke, near the equator, or south of it (in 31° 22′ E. long. from Greenwich), but far to the north-east, as does Antoine d’Abbadie, in the Godjeb and Gibbe of Eneara (Iniara), therefore in the high mountains of Habesch, in 7° 20′ north lat., and 35° 22′ east long. from Greenwich. He is of opinion that the Arabs, from a similarity of sound, may have interpreted the native name Gamaro, which was applied to the Abyssinian mountains lying south-west of Gaka, and in which the Godjeb (or White Nile) takes its rise, to signify a mountain of the moon (Djebel al-Kamar); so that Ptolemy himself, who was familiar with the intercourse existing between Abyssinia and the Indian Ocean, may have adopted the Semitic interpretation, as given by the descendants of the early Arab immigrants.^[EZ]

The lively interest which has recently been felt in England for the discovery of the most southern sources of the Nile induced the Abyssinian traveller above referred to, (Charles Beke) at a recent meeting of the “British Association for the advancement of Science,” held at Swansea, more fully to develope his ideas respecting the connection between the Mountains of the Moon and those of Habesch. “The Abyssinian elevated plain,” he says, “generally above 8000 feet high, extends towards the south to nearly 9° or 10° north latitude. The eastern declivity of the highlands has, to the inhabitants of the coast, the appearance of a mountain chain. The plateau, which diminishes considerably in height towards its southern extremity, passes into the Mountains of the Moon, which run not east and west, but parallel to the coast, or from N.N.E. to S.S.W., extending from 10° north to 5° south latitude. The sources of the White Nile are situated in the Mono-Moezi country, probably in 2° 30′ south latitude, not far from where the river Sabaki, on the eastern side of the Mountains of the Moon, falls into the Indian Ocean, near Melindeh, north of Mombaza. Last autumn (1847), the two Abyssinian missionaries Rebmann and Dr. Krapf were still on the coast of Mombaza. They have established in the vicinity, among the Wakamba tribe, a missionary station, called Rabbay Empie, which seems likely to be very useful for geographical discoveries. Families of the Wakamba tribe have advanced westward five or six hundred miles into the interior of the country, as far as the upper course of the river Lusidji, the great lake Nyassi or Zambeze (5° south lat.?), and the vicinal sources of the Nile. The expedition to these sources, which Friedrich Bialloblotzky, of Hanover, is preparing to undertake” (by the advice of Beke), “is to start from Mombaza. The Nile coming from the west referred to by the ancients is probably the Bahr-el-Ghazal, or Keilah, which falls into the Nile in 9° north lat., above the mouth of the Godjeb or Sobat.”

Russegger’s scientific expedition—undertaken in 1837 and 1838, in consequence of Mehemet Ali’s eager desire to participate in the gold washings of Fazokl on the Blue (Green) Nile, Bahr el-Azrek—has rendered the existence of a Mountain of the Moon very doubtful. The Blue Nile, the Astapus of Ptolemy, rising from Lake Coloe (now called Lake Tzana), winds through the colossal Abyssinian range of mountains; while to the south-west there appears a far extended tract of low land. The three exploring expeditions which the Egyptian Government sent from Chartum to the confluence of the Blue and the White Nile (the first under the command of Selim Bimbaschi, in November, 1839; the next, which was attended by the French engineers Arnaud, Sabatier, and Thibaut, in the autumn of 1840; and the third, in the month of August, 1841), first removed some of the obscurity which had hitherto shrouded our knowledge of the high mountains, which between the parallels of 6°–4°, and probably still further southward, extend first from west to east, and subsequently from north-west to south-east, towards the left bank of the Bahr-el-Abiad. The second of Mehemet Ali’s expeditions first saw the mountain chain, according to Werne’s account, in 11° 20′ north lat., where Gebel Abul and Gebel Kutak rise to the height of 3623 feet. The high land continued to approach the river more to the south from 4° 45′ north lat. to the parallel of the Island of Tchenker in 4° 4′, near the point at which terminated the expedition commanded by Selim and Feizulla Effendi. The shallow river breaks its way through the rocks, and separate mountains again rise in the land of Bari to the height of more than 3200 feet. These are probably a part of the Mountains of the Moon, as they are given in our most recent maps, although they are not covered with perpetual snow, as asserted by Ptolemy.^[FA] The line of perpetual snow would assuredly not be found in these parallels of latitude below an elevation of nearly 15,500 feet above the sea’s level. It is not improbable that Ptolemy extended the knowledge he may have possessed of the high mountains of Habesch, near Upper Egypt and the Red Sea, to the country of the sources of the White Nile. In Godjam, Kaffa, Miecha, and Sami, the Abyssinian mountains rise from 10,000 to nearly 15,000 feet, as we learn from exact measurements; (not according to those of Bruce, who gives to Chartum an elevation of 5041 feet, instead of the true height, 1524 feet!) Rüppell, who ranks amongst the most accurate observers of the present day, found Abba Jarat (in 13° 10′ north lat.) only 70 feet below the elevation of Mont Blanc,^[FB] The same observer states that a plain, elevated 13,940 feet above the Red Sea, was barely covered with a thin layer of freshly fallen snow.^[FC] The celebrated inscription of Adulis, which, according to Niebuhr, is of somewhat later date than the age of Juba and Augustus, speaks of “Abyssinian snow that reaches to the knee,” and affords, I believe, the most ancient record in antiquity of snow within the tropics,^[FD] as the Paropanisus is 12° lat. north of that limit.

Zimmermann’s map of the district of the Upper Nile shows the dividing line where the basin of the great river terminates in the south-east, and which separates it from the domain of the rivers belonging to the Indian Ocean, viz.; from the Doara which empties itself north of Magadoxo; from the Teb on the amber coast of Ogda; from the Goschop whose abundant waters are derived from the confluence of the Gibu and the Zebi, and which must be distinguished from the Godjeb, rendered celebrated since 1839 by Antoine d’Abbadie, Beke, and the Missionary Krapf. In a letter to Carl Ritter I hailed with the most lively joy the appearance of the combined results of the recent travels of Beke, Krapf, Isenberg, Russegger, Rüppel, Abbadie, and Werne, as ably and comprehensively brought together in 1843 by Zimmermann. “If a prolonged span of life,” I wrote to him, “bring with it many inconveniences to the individual himself, and some to those about him, it yields a compensation in the mental enjoyment, afforded by comparing the earlier state of our knowledge with its more recent condition, and of seeing the growth and development of many branches of science that had long continued torpid, or whose actual fruits hypercriticism may even have attempted to set aside. This genial enjoyment has from time to time fallen to our lot in our geographical studies, and more especially in reference to those portions of which we could hitherto only speak with a certain timid hesitation. The internal configuration and articulation of a continent depends in its leading characters on several plastic relations which are usually among the latest to be elucidated. A new and excellent work of our friend, Carl Zimmermann, on the district of the Upper Nile and of the eastern portions of Central Africa, has made me more vividly sensible of these considerations. This new map indicates, in the clearest manner, by means of a special mode of shading, all that still remains unknown, and all that by the courage and perseverance of travellers of all nations (among which our own countrymen happily play an important part), has already been disclosed to us. We may regard it as alike important and useful that the actual condition of our knowledge, should, at different periods, be graphically represented by men well acquainted with the existing and often widely scattered materials of knowledge, and who not merely delineate and compile, but who know how to compare, select, and, where it is practicable, test the routes of travellers by astronomical determinations of place. Those who have contributed as much to the general stock of knowledge as you have done, have indeed an especial right to expect much, since their combinations have greatly increased the number of connecting points; yet I scarcely think that when, in the year 1822, you executed your great work on Africa, you could have anticipated so many additions as we have received.” It must be admitted that, in some cases, we have only acquired a knowledge of rivers, their direction, their branches, and their numerous synonymes according to various languages and dialects; but the courses of rivers indicate the configuration of the surface of the earth, and exert a threefold influence; they promote vegetation, facilitate general intercourse, and are pregnant with the future destiny of man.

The northern course of the White Nile, and the south-eastern course of the great Goschop, show that both rivers are separated by an elevation of the surface of the earth; although we are as yet but imperfectly acquainted with the manner in which such an elevation is connected with the highlands of Habesch, or how it may be prolonged in a southerly direction beyond the equator. Probably, and this is also the opinion of my friend Carl Ritter, the Lupata Mountains, which, according to the excellent Wilhelm Peters, extend to 26° south lat., are connected by means of the Mountains of the Moon with this northern swelling of the earth’s surface (the Abyssinian Highlands). Lupata, according to the last-named African traveller, signifies, in the language of Tette, closed, when used as an adjective. This mountain-range which is only intersected by some few rivers would thus be the closed or barred. “The Lupata chain of the Portuguese writers,” says Peters, “is situated about 90 leagues from the mouth of the Zambeze, and has an elevation of little more than 2000 feet. This mural chain has a direction due north and south, although it frequently deflects to the east or the west. It is sometimes interrupted by plains. Along the coast of Zanzibar the traders in the interior appear to be acquainted with this long, but not very high range, which extends between 6° and 26° south lat. to the Factory of Lourenzo-Marques on the Rio de Espirito Santo (in the Delagoa Bay of the English). The further the Lupata chain extends to the south, the nearer it approaches the coast, until at Lourenzo-Marques it is only 15 leagues distant from it.”

24. p. 10.—“The consequence of the great rotatory movement of the waters.”

The waters of the northern part of the Atlantic between Europe, Northern Africa, and the New Continent, are agitated by a continually recurring gyratory movement. Under the tropics the general current to which the term rotation-stream might appropriately be given in consideration of the cause from which it arises, moves, as is well known, like the trade wind from east to west. It accelerates the navigation of vessels sailing from the Canary Isles to South America; while it is nearly impossible to pursue a straight course against the current from Carthagena de Indias to Cumana. This bend to the west, attributed to the trade winds, is accelerated in the Caribbean Sea by a much stronger movement, which originates in a very remote cause, discovered as early as 1560 by Sir Humphrey Gilbert,^[FE] and confirmed in 1832 by Rennell. The Mozambique current, flowing from north to south between Madagascar and the eastern coast of Africa, sets on the Lagullas Bank, and bends to the north of it round the southern point of Africa. After advancing with much violence along the western coast of Africa beyond the equator to the island of St. Thomas, it gives a north-westerly direction to a portion of the waters of the South Atlantic, causing them to strike Cape St. Augustin, and follow the shores of Guiana beyond the mouth of the Orinoco, the Boca del Drago, and the coast of Paria.^[FF] The New Continent from the Isthmus of Panama to the northern part of Mexico forms a dam or barrier against the movements of the sea. Owing to this obstruction the current is necessarily deflected in a northerly direction at Veragua, and made to follow the sinuosities of the coast-line from Costa Rica, Mosquitos, Campeche, and Tabasco. The waters which enter the Mexican Gulf between Cape Catoche of Yucatan, and Cape San Antonio de Cuba, force their way back into the open ocean north of the Straits of Bahama, after they have been agitated by a great rotatory movement between Vera Cruz, Tamiagna, the mouth of the Rio Bravo del Norte, and the Mississippi. Here they form a warm, rapid current, known to mariners as the Gulf Stream, which deflects in a diagonal direction further and further from the shores of North America. Ships bound for this coast from Europe, and uncertain of their geographical longitude, are enabled by this oblique direction of the current to regulate their course as soon as they reach the Gulf Stream by observations of latitude only. The bearings of this current were first accurately determined by Franklin, Williams, and Pownall.

From the parallel of 41° north lat. this stream of warm water follows an easterly direction, gradually diminishing in rapidity as it increases in breadth. It almost touches the southern edge of the Great Newfoundland Bank, where I found the greatest amount of difference between the temperature of the waters of the Gulf Stream and those exposed to the cooling action of the banks. Before the warm current reaches the Western Azores it separates into two branches, one of which turns at certain seasons of the year towards Ireland and Norway, while the other flows in the direction of the Canary Isles and the western coast of Northern Africa.

The course of this Atlantic current, which I have described more fully in the first volume of my travels in the regions of the tropics, affords an explanation of the manner in which, notwithstanding the action of the trade winds, stems of the South American and West Indian dicotyledons have been found on the coasts of the Canary Islands. I made many observations on the temperature of the Gulf Stream in the vicinity of the Newfoundland Bank. This current bears the warmer water of lower latitudes with great rapidity into more northern regions. The temperature of the stream is therefore from about 4°½ to 7° Fahr. higher than that of the contiguous and unmoved water which constitutes the shore as it were of the warm oceanic current.

The flying-fish of the equinoctial zone (Exocetus volitans), is borne by its predilection for the warmth of the water of the Gulf Stream far to the north of the temperate zone. Floating sea-weed (Fucus natans), chiefly taken up by the stream in the Mexican Gulf, makes it easy for the navigator to recognize when he has entered the Gulf Stream, whilst the position of the branches of the sea-weed indicate the direction of the current. The mainmast of the English ship of war, the Tilbury, which was destroyed by fire in the seven years’ war on the coasts of Saint Domingo, was carried by the Gulf Stream to the northern coasts of Scotland: and casks filled with palm-oil, the remains of the cargo of an English ship wrecked on a rock off Cape Lopez in Africa, were in like manner carried to Scotland, after having twice traversed the Atlantic Ocean, once from east to west between 2° and 12° north lat., following the course of the equinoctial current, and once from west to east between 45° and 55° north lat. by help of the Gulf Stream. Rennell, in the work already referred to, p. 347, relates the voyage of a bottle inclosing a written paper which had been thrown from the English ship Newcastle in 38° 52′ north lat., and 63° 58′ west long., on the 20th of January, 1819, and which was first seen on the 2nd of June, 1820, at the Rosses in the north-west of Ireland, near the Island of Arran. Shortly before my arrival at Teneriffe a stem of South American cedar-wood (Cedrela odorata), thickly covered with lichens, was cast ashore near the harbour of Santa Cruz.

The effects of the Gulf Stream in stranding on the Azorean Islands of Fayal, Flores, and Corvo, bamboos, artificially cut pieces of wood, trunks of an unknown species of pine from Mexico or the West Indies, and corpses of men of a peculiar race, having very broad faces, have mainly contributed to the discovery of America, as they confirmed Columbus in his belief of the existence of Asiatic countries and islands situated in the west. The great discoverer even heard from a settler on the Cap de la Verga in the Azores “that persons in sailing westward had met with covered barks, which were managed by men of foreign appearance, and appeared to be constructed in such a manner that they could not sink, almadias con casa movediza que nunca se hunden.” There are well authenticated proofs, however much the facts may have been called in question, that natives of America (probably Esquimaux from Greenland or Labrador), were carried by currents or streams from the north-west to our own continent. James Wallace ^[FG] relates that in the year 1682 a Greenlander in his canoe was seen on the southern extremity of the Island of Eda by many persons, who could not, however, succeed in reaching him. In 1684 a Greenland fisherman appeared near the Island of Westram. In the church at Burra there was suspended an Esquimaux boat, which had been driven on shore by currents and storms. The inhabitants of the Orkneys call the Greenlanders who have appeared amongst them Finnmen.

In Cardinal Bembo’s History of Venice I find it stated, that in the year 1508 a small boat, manned by seven persons of a foreign aspect, was captured near the English coast by a French ship. The description given of them applies perfectly to the form of the Esquimaux (homines erant septem mediocri statura, colore subobscuro, lato et patente vultu, cicatriceque una violacea signato). No one understood their language. Their clothing was made of fish skins sewn together. On their heads they wore coronam e culmo pictam, septem quasi auriculis intextam. They ate raw flesh, and drank blood as we would wine. Six of these men perished during the voyage, and the seventh, a youth, was presented to the King of France, who was then at Orleans.^[FH]

The appearance of men called Indians on the coasts of Germany under the Othos and Frederic Barbarossa in the tenth and twelfth centuries, and as Cornelius Nepos (in his Fragments),^[FI] Pomponius Mela,^[FJ] and Pliny ^[FK] relate, when Quintus Metellus Celer was Proconsul in Gaul, may be explained by similar effects of oceanic currents and by the long continuance of north-westerly winds. A king of the Boii, or, as others say, of the Suevi, gave these stranded dark-coloured men to Metellus Celer. Gomara ^[FL] regards these Indian subjects of the King of the Boii as natives of Labrador. He writes, Si ya no fuesen de Tierra del Labrador, y los tuviesen los Romanos por Indianos engañados en el color. It may be inferred that the appearance of Esquimaux on the northern shores of Europe was more frequent in earlier times, for we learn from the investigations of Bask and Finn Magnusen, that this race had spread in the eleventh and twelfth century in considerable numbers, under the name of Skrälingers, from Labrador as far south as the Good Vinland, i.e. the shore of Massachussets and Connecticut.^[FM]

As the winter cold of the most northern part of Scandinavia is ameliorated by the action of the Gulf Stream, which carries American tropical fruits (as cocoa-nuts, seeds of Mimosa scandens and Anacardium occidentale) beyond 62° north lat.; so also Iceland enjoys from time to time the genial influence of the diffusion of the warm waters of the Gulf Stream far to the northward. The sea coasts of Iceland, like those of the Faroe Isles, receive a large number of trunks of trees, driven thither from America; and this drift-wood, which formerly came in greater abundance, was used for the purposes of building, and cut into boards and laths. The fruits of tropical plants collected on the Icelandic shores, especially between Raufarhaven and Vapnafiord, show that the movement of the water is from a southerly direction.^[FN]