July 3, 1890] 



NATURE 



225 



to four feet in diameter. Then from tree to tree run 

 cables from two inches to fifteen inches in diameter, up 

 and down in loops and festoons and W's and badly- 

 formed M's ; fold them round the trees in great tight coils, 

 until they have run up the entire height, like endless 

 anacondas ; let them flower and leaf luxuriantly, and mix 

 up above with the foliage of the trees to hide the sun, 

 then from the highest brarches let fall the ends of the 

 cables reaching near to the ground by hundreds with 

 frayed extremities, for these represent the air roots of the 

 Epiphytes ; let slender cords hang down also in tassels 

 with open thread-work at the ends. Work others through 

 and through these as confusedly as possible, and pendent 

 from branch to branch — with absolute disregard of 

 material, and at every fork and on every horizontal 

 branch plant cabbage-like lichens of the largest kind, and 

 broad spear-leaved plants — these would represent the 

 elephant-eared plant— and orchids and clusters of vege- 

 table marvels, and a drapery of delicate ferns which 

 ibound. Now cover tree, branch, twig, and creeper with 

 I thick moss like a green fur. Where the forest is com- 

 pact as described above, we may not do more than cover 

 the ground closely with a thick crop of phrynia, and 



amoma, and dwarf bush ; but if the lightning, as 

 frequently happens, has severed the crown of a proud 

 tree, and let in the sunlight, or split a giant down to its 

 roots, or scorched it dead, or a tornado has been uproot- 

 ing a few trees, then the race for air and light has caused 

 a multitude of baby trees to rush upward — crowded, 

 crushing, and treading upon and strangling one another, 

 until the whole is ore impervious bush. 



" But the average forest is a mixture of these scenes. 

 There will probably be groups of fifty trees standing like 

 columns of a cathedral, grey and solemn in the twilight, 

 and in the midst there will be a naked and gaunt patriarch, 

 bleached white, and around it will have grown a young 

 community, each young tree clambering upward to become 

 heir to the area of light and sunshine once occupied 

 by the sire. The law of primogeniture reigns here 

 also." 



What is the real extent of the continuous forest area ? 

 Is the forest of Mr. Du Chaillu in the Ogowd region, and 

 that in which Livingstone wandered between Tanganyika 

 and Nyangw^, really part of the same great forest through 

 which the Ituri flows? The two slave-raiding parties 

 which Mr. Stanley met on the Ituri, and which had come 



V.ew of the South End of Albert Nyanza. 



north from Kibonge on the Upper Congo, journeyed 

 through dense forest the whole way, meeting with not a 

 patch of open grass. That the forest may be almost con- 

 tinuous from about Nyangwe to the Ituri, and for some 

 distance northwards, is probable enough. But that there 

 is one continuous forest from the Lower Ogowe to the 

 plateau above Lake Albert is highly improbable. Indeed, 

 from the observations of De Brazza and of Mr. Stanley 

 himself on the Lower Congo, and in the country between 

 that and the Ogow^, we know that there does exist much 

 open country there. Even in the region with which 

 -Mr. Stanley specially deals— the region along the Ituri 

 and to the north and south— it must be remembered that 

 it has been traversed only along one or two lines. Con- 

 sidering the close network of rivers which characterize 

 the region, it is probable enough that over a very great 

 area we have one dense forest. Readers of Schweinfurth, 

 I'-min, and Junker, will remember the "gallery" forests 

 which they describe to the north and north-east of 

 Mr. Stanley's route ; forests lining the banks of the rivers, 

 and stretching for several miles from their banks. It may 

 be, then, that in the fturi region, with its many rivers, we 

 have a series of gallery forests which have coalesced or 

 NO. 1079, VOL. 42] 



overlapped into one continuous forest. With the rapidly 

 progressing opening-up of Africa, this is a problem that 

 cannot remain long unsolved. At the same time it should 

 be remembered that even in the Amazonian basin the 

 forest is by no means continuous, but gives way in many 

 places to great stretches of open land. 



Mr. Stanley was here in what is probably the rainiest 

 region of all Africa. We were at first disposed to believe 

 that most of the moisture found its way westwards from 

 the Indian Ocean. But this is a point on which Mr. Stanley 

 made many careful observations, and his conclusion that 

 the great rain-bearing winds come from the Atlantic must 

 meantime be accepted. At the same time it is to be 

 hoped that the Government of the Congo Free State will 

 establish a series of observing-stations over as wide an 

 area as possible, and so collect data which will be useful 

 not only to science, but of service to its own economic 

 interests. One great service rendered by Emin Pasha 

 was the daily series of observations which he carried on 

 at Lado for several years, and which render that station 

 the one place in Central Africa for which we have trust- 

 worthy meteorological data. Emin carried on his obser- 

 vations during the whole period he was with Mr. Stanley, 



