;V2 r<l,n\|\L UEI'OUTS MISCELLANEOUS. 



rxirnd iii I luil direction as i'iir as the village of N'Kansia, and 

 a tin- that in a nort h-\vesi<>rly direction as far as the Tano- 

 .\ nkohra skater-parting. 



I'ehveen the J'rcstea mining camp and the adjacent group of 

 the Bromase mines the country continues to be hilly and the 

 forest vegetation has been extensively cleared for firewood and 

 for tin 1 farms from which the food supply of the native settle- 

 i urn is connected with the mining industry is procured. The 

 descent to the Ankobra lUver, which separates the two groups of 

 mine's, is rocky and abrupt, and its channel is much obstructed 

 by huge outcrops of rock; the crossing is very different in 

 character to the lower one, where the bed of the river is covered 

 with sands and gravel and the water quite shallow. Prestea and 

 Hromase are connected by a light tram-line, which is, however, 

 interrupted at the crossing, but an overhead wire enables bundles 

 ol fuel to be slung over from one side to the other without 

 difficulty. 



Extensive and dense patches of the " umbrella tree " (Musanga 

 Xntif/i/i) have completely covered the clearings made for fire- 

 wood. As the locality is extremely well watered and appears to 

 possess a heavy rainfall there is not much danger of marked 

 climatic changes being brought about in the near future by this 

 destruction of the forests. Some saw-pits in which -mahogany 

 and odoum timber had been cut up were seen, as well as large 

 numbers of faggots procured from the N'yanl'on (Heritiera 



Shortly after leaving Bromase a stiff hill is encountered, 

 after which the path follows the ridge for a long distance. 

 This ridge is clothed for the greater part of the way with 

 evergreen tropical high forest in which numerous examples 

 of the Dalwmoli, the N'yankon, the Waic-icfnc, the Tiaiiin- 

 Tlainn (a new species of Pseiidocedrela, close to P. cylindrica), 

 a fine large tree, and a few Dubini (the ordinary Kli<ni<i 

 of the moist forests of the Gold Coast) are to be seen. 

 The ()<lomn (Chlorophora excelsd) is also far from uncommon 

 on this ridge and attains an exceptionally good growth. 



On approaching the vicinity of some native villages 

 situated in the valley to the left of the ridge the forests on 

 the latter give place to recent secondary growth that has 

 sprung up on the old abandoned farms of the inhabitants. 

 Some quite fresh clearings still occupied by food crops were 

 also seen. From a cleared point on the ridge an extensire 

 view to the west of the valley of the Ankobra and the broken 

 country through which it flows is obtained, and some con- 

 ception can be thus formed of the extent to which the forest 

 vegetation has been removed by the clearings made for farms. 

 Th- whole country in that direction is literally honeycombed 

 with them, and yet the villages are not numerous and the 

 locality is far from being densely populated. 



This problem of how to cope with and restrict the enormous 

 (comparatively speaking) extent of country that is being con- 

 tinuously brought under the treatment of shifting cultivation 



