While Farther To The West Another Lake, Supplied By The
Southern Drainage, May Form The Head Of The River Congo.
On the north a
similar system may drain into the Niger and Lake Tchad:
Thus the
Victoria and the Albert lakes, being the two great reservoirs or sources
of the Nile, may be the first of a system of African equatorial lakes
fed by the northern and southern drainage of the mountain range, and
supplying all the principal rivers of Africa from the great equatorial
rainfall. The fact of the centre of Africa at the Nile sources being
about 4,000 feet above the ocean, independently of high mountains rising
from that level, suggests that the drainage of the Equator from the
central and elevated portion must find its way to the lower level and
reach the sea. Wherever high mountain ranges exist, there must also be
depressions; those situated in an equatorial rainfall must receive the
drainage from the high lands and become lakes, the overflow of which
must form the sources of rivers, precisely as exemplified in the sources
of the Nile from the Victoria and the Albert lakes.
The fact that Sir Roderick Murchison, as a geologist, laid down a theory
of the existence of a chain of lakes upon an elevated plateau in Central
Africa, which theory has been now in great measure confirmed by actual
inspection, induces me to quote an extract from his address at the
anniversary meeting of the Royal Geographical Society, 23d May, 1864.
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