]\Iarch 2, 19 16] 



NATURE 



AXTHROPOLOGY AND FAUX A OF THE 

 CHAD BASINA 



''I^HE volume before us, which is pubUshed by 

 i- the Ministry of the Colonies at Paris, repre- 

 sents — we assume — the outcome of the scientific 

 researches in the very heart of Africa — the basin 

 of Lake Chad — made by the exploring expedi- 

 tions of the late (?) Commandant Tilho, who be- 

 tween 1906 and 1909 did so much to place cor- 

 rectly on the map of Africa this variable reservoir 

 of the waters streaming northwards from the 

 Congo watershed (it would seem as though this 

 gallant and indefatigable explorer had recently- 

 died, from the rather obscure wording of the pre- 

 face). 



Lake Chad was first definitely discovered by 

 the British expedition under Oudney, Denham, 

 and Clapperton, which crossed the Sahara from 

 Tripoli in 1822-23. Its existence had been 

 rumoured in the heart of Africa from Roman times 

 onwards. The twentieth-century investigations 

 of British and French explorers, combined with 

 some previous work done by Germans, indicate 

 Lake Chad and some of the brackish lakes and 

 lakelets to the south-east as the last remains of 

 a vast sheet of shallow water anciently connected 

 with the inner basin of the Niger. Farther back 

 still in earth history, in Cretaceous and prob- 

 ably Eocene times, this huge lake must have 

 stretched from the limits of Senegambia to the 

 Nile and Congo watersheds, and have communi- 

 cated probably with the Atlantic Ocean to the 

 north of the Senegal River. Even at the present 

 day there is an intermittent water connection 

 between the Chad system and the Upper Benue, 

 and there may well have been a similar connec- 

 tion in earlier times with the south-western basin 

 of the Nile. The altitudes that separate the 

 Congo basin from the Chad and the Benue basins 

 are not considerable, though more marked in 

 height than the line of water-parting at its lowest 

 between the Nile system and that eastern back- 

 'Water of Lake Chad known as the Bahr-al-Ghazal 

 (this confusing name, which is also applied to 

 the huge south-western area of the Nile basin, 

 simply means " River of Antelopes "). The way in 

 which these great river and lake systems of 

 Central Africa either communicate with one an- 

 other, or very nearly communicate, reminds one 

 of the water connection between the systems of 

 the Orinoco and the Amazon in analogous Equa- 

 ! torial South America. 



I The fish fauna collected by Commandant Tilho 



I and his companions comes as an additional proof 



j to the luminous theories of Dr. G. A. Boulenger, 



1 of the British Museum, who, by means of his 



I studies of the fresh-water fish of tropical Africa, 



has shown us that at one period there must have 



been water communication between the systems 



of the Senegal, Upper Niger, Benue, Lake Chad, 



and even the south-western affluents of the Nile. 



The fish fauna of the Congo basin is far more 



.3*' Rcpabliqne Fran<;a'ie. Ministere des Colonies. Documents Scien- 

 ^J'Tues de U Mission Tilho (1906-09)." Tome troisicrae. Pp. vii+^84. 

 <Paris: E. I^rose. i<;i<.) 



NO. 2418, VOL. 971 



specialised, and though the two systems of drain- 

 i age at one time must have been less separated 

 than they are now and have approached one 

 ' another so near that aerial methods of trans- 

 porting fish over from one to the other must have 

 been possible, there remains nevertheless a far 

 ! closer connection between the basins of the Nile, 

 ! Lake Chad, and the Niger than there is between 

 j all these and the Congo and Congolese lakes. 



The volume contains chapters on the anthro- 

 I pology of the islands and eastern coastlands of 

 ! Lake Chad and the western Bahr-al-Ghazal ; on 

 the reptiles and the batrachians ; on the fish, the 

 gastropods, and the bivalves or fresh-water 

 oysters ; on the diptera ; and lastly on the botany 

 of the region. The anthropological notes deal 

 chiefly with the Buduma and Kuri of the Chad 

 I archipelago, and secondarily with the Kanem-bu 

 and Manga wa, the Teda or Tubu, and the Ulad- 

 sliman Arabs. These last, also known as Wasili, 

 Washila, etc., seem to have migrated to this 

 , region from the south of Tripoli some 500 or 600 

 i years ago. The Buduma are an exceedingly in- 

 : teresting people of puzzling characteristics, their 

 ' language (not illustrated in the w-ork under re- 

 view) suggesting affinities with the Nilotic group 

 i far to the east. Their physique seems to indicate 

 that they are the result of crossing between Nile 

 ! negroes and the Ful who invaded this Chad 

 region several centuries ago. The physiognomy 

 of the Mangawa, on the other hand, recalls the 

 Bantu type of the northern Congo and south- 

 east Niger basins. The Tubu or Teda are an- 

 other ethnological puzzle. They speak a negro 

 type of language of no discoverable affinities 

 I (virtually identical with the language of Bornu), 

 i but in their physical appearance they resemble 

 ; very strongly the hybrids between Nilotic Negro 

 i and Gala of Equatorial East Africa. 

 ! Much information is given in regard to the 

 j tsetse- and gad-flies of the Chad region. 

 I H. H. Johnston. 



PROF. IVAN PETROVITCH PAVLOV. 



IN the death of Ivan Petrovitch Pavlov, which 

 was announced in the Times of February' 12, 

 a physiologist has passed away who made the 

 world of medical science his debtor for all time. 

 Pavlov, the son of a secular clergyman, was born 

 in 1849, and thus at his dea.th had not reached the 

 allotted span of human life. When he last 

 mingled with his confreres at the International 

 Congress of Physiology in Groningen — little more 

 than two years ago — he appeared to be in the 

 full vigour of life, and no one would have sup- 

 posed that the summons to his long home would 

 so soon be issued. 



Pavlov is chiefly known to the present genera- 

 tion of physiologists by his work on the digestive 

 glands ; but this only represents th<^ middle period, 

 though perhaps the chief period, of his activities. 

 His earliest published work (1877) was on the 

 "Accommodation Mechanism of Blood Vessels." 

 This was carried out in the laboratorv of Ustimo- 



