LIBERIA. 249 



panics and from the accounts of Liberian, British, and French 

 explorers, that out of the 45,000 square miles which may be approxi- 

 mately assigned as the area of the Liberian Republic, at least 25,000 

 square miles consist of dense, uncleared forest, penetrated, it may be, 

 b}'^ narrow native paths, but as often as not only pierced by elephant- 

 made tracks. Aljout 3,500 square miles represent the plantations, 

 gardens, towns, and settlements of the Americo-Liberians along the 

 coast and 2,000 or 3,000 square miles the clearings made by the indig- 

 enous natives in the dense forest. The remainder of the territory — 

 auout 15,000 square miles — is grass or park land in the possession of 

 the Mandingo tribes, who are great cattle breeders. This is the 

 characteri^+^ic of the far interior of Liberia, where it borders on the 

 French possessions of Upper Nigeria. From all accounts I can col- 

 lect, as well as from the little I have seen myself, I do not think that 

 much of the interior of Liberia can be described as marshy. It is, 

 on the other hand, inclined to be hilly, and at distances of from 40 to 

 100 miles inland the ranges of hills reach altitudes which might 

 almost be dignitied by the name of mountains. Some of these 

 mountains (the Nimba range) attain heights of over G,000 feet — this, 

 at any rate, is the height ascribed to them by certain French explor- 

 ers; and from what I am told by Mr. Maitland Pye-Smith, one of 

 the agents of the aforesaid British companies, I am inclined to think 

 that 4,000 feet, at any rate, is reached or exceeded by peaks in the 

 Satro range. If the reports of certain travelers are justified, how- 

 ever, it may well turn out that there are altitudes (such as Mount 

 Druple) on the Franco-Liberian border of over 9,000 feet, and conse- 

 quently higher than anything that is to be met in West Africa south 

 of the upper Niger and west of the Kamerun. Some of these moun- 

 tain sides are precipitous, with faces of bare rock. Others, again, 

 are clothed with dense vegetation to their summits, and this continu- 

 ance of dense and lofty forests for miles and miles and miles will be a 

 terrible hindrance to surveying in the future, while at the present time 

 it gives to Liberian exploration the same sad and somewhat dreary 

 character that has been so powerfully described by Stanley in record- 

 ing his adventures in the great Kongo forest. Much as the botanist 

 may glory in the splendid vegetation, I really think that in the long 

 run one wearies more quickly and easily of forest than of desert. 



Forest, in fact, is the distinguishing feature of Liberia as a country ; 

 it is the climax of the forest region of West Africa. In and from the 

 forest will be derived the great future wealth of this country. The 

 geologic formation would appear to be mainly Archean, and the rocks 

 are mostly granite and (jiiartz, with here and there indications of 

 volcanic tuff. The rocks near the seacoast and in the coast ranges of 

 bills are much impregnated with iron, and are consequently very red 

 SM 1905 20 



