244 GEOLOGV OF AFRICA. 



once led to the consideration whether Sierra Leone ought 

 not to be entirely relinquished. An attempt has even been 

 recently made to establish in its room a colony at Fernando 

 Po, a small island in the Gulf of Benin ; but the expectations 

 formed from its climate have also been entirely disappointed. 

 Meantime, it is considered that the absolute abandonment 

 of Sierra Leone w^ould leave full scope for the contraband 

 slave-trade, and frustrate all hopes of establishing a centre 

 whence civilization might hereafter spread throughout 

 Africa. The latest accounts from the governors, Colonel 

 Denham, in 1827 and 1828, and Major Ricketts, in 1829, 

 express a decided opinion that a spirit of improvement is at 

 last beginning to be manifested, — that the inhabitants show 

 a disposition to cultivate the ground, and an anxiety to be 

 able to purchase European luxuries,— and that in the 

 villages, particularly of Wellington and Waterloo, good 

 churches, and a few stone houses, have been erected. The 

 annual expenditure has been reduced to about 40,000Z., of 

 which 17,000Z. is for liberated Africans ; and government 

 seems desirous to retain the settlement, till the natives shall 

 be so far improved as to be able to conduct their own ad- 

 ministration, and to afford an example of industry and order 

 to the neighbouring states. 



CHAPTER XVII. 



Geology of Africa.* 



Africa is distinguished from the other continents by its 

 nearly insular form, being connected with Asia merely by 

 an inconsiderable neck of land or isthmus, viz. that of 

 Suez. It extends from the equator to about the average 

 latitude of 35° north, and also to the same degree of lati- 

 tude south. The greatest length from north to south is 

 from Cape Serrat in Algiers, in lat. 37° 18' N., to Cape 



* According to some authors, the n«me Africa is derived from a, neg., 

 tinAfrigxis, cold ; while otherd trace it from a small Carthaginian districl 

 named Frigi— A-frikc-a. 



