Abstract
THE conclusions come to by Herr Chavanne we have already referred to. Africa, he finds, is, on the whole, a high plateau or table-land, crossed here and there by mountain-chains or single elevations. The plateau commences in most places at a remarkably short distance from the sea, the slopes south of the equator being particularly steep. North of the equator the land may be looked upon as a very slightly inclined plane, which, like the southern plateau, is also crossed by separate elevations, some of them being very considerable. The presence of numerous, and for the greater part widely-distributed, lakes is unlike the general physiognomy of the other large continents. By far the most important part of the author's work is the excellent hypsometrical map which accompanies the book, and to which we referred a short time ago. Its scale is 1 : 30,000,000. The elevations are marked in eight different tints of brown, showing so many grades and altitudes from zero upwards. Thus at one glance we see the African continent rising as a rule from 0 to 600 metres in the northern half, while, in the southern half, elevations from 900–1200 metres are the rule. The greatest heights those of 1500–2000 metres and more—are packed close together on the east side, between the southern end of the Red Sea and the Zambesi River, and only occur again in the extreme south-east (Natal) and far up in the north-west (Atlas). The text of the book is well written; the author's descriptions are always attractive, to the point, and free from all superfluous wordiness.
Afrika im Lichte unserer Tage. Bodengestalt und geologischer Bau.
(With a Hypsometrical Map.) By Josef Chavanne. (Vienna: A. Hartleben.)
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Afrika im Lichte unserer Tage. Bodengestalt und geologischer Bau . Nature 24, 581 (1881). https://doi.org/10.1038/024581a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/024581a0