Abstract
BY the death of General E. A. Lenfant at the age of fifty-eight, France has lost one of the most noteworthy explorers of her African empire. He began his work in Africa in 1898, when he studied the course of the Senegal, and later the floods of the Niger. In 1901–2 he twice traversed the middle and lower Niger, passing the rapids successfully and collecting much useful informa tion on the regime of the river and the geography of its valley. In 1903 Lenfant was again sent to Africa to investigate the possibility of water transport from the coast to Lake Chad. On this occasion he explored the Logone, a tributary of the Shari; the Kabi, a tributary of the Benue; and Lake Tuburi, which lies between the two. Between 1906 and 1908 Lenfant's explorations were in the western part of the Ubanghi-Shari country, around the head waters of the Shari. He showed that the Bara-Shari is a branch of the Shari, and that the Pende, which is the same as the Logone, provides the best route from the Sanaga to the Shari, and so to Lake Chad. Lenfant was the author of several works on Africa, including “Le Niger” (1903), “La grande route duTchad” (1905), and “La decouverte des grandes sources du centre de l'Afrique” (1909).
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General E. A. Lenfant. Nature 111, 678 (1923). https://doi.org/10.1038/111678b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/111678b0