THE 



GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE. 



NEW SERIES. DECADE V. VOL. II. 



No. XII.— DECEMBER, 1905. 



OK,IC3-I3:srjL3L .A.I^TIOLES. 



I. — Notes on the Geological History of the Victokia Falls.^, 



ByG.W. Lamplugh, F.K.S. ' 



IT is difficult for anyone standing on the brink of the Chasm, 

 after having seen the placid flow of the Zambesi above the' 

 Falls, to believe that the fissure into which the river is so suddenly 

 precipitated has been formed gradually by the action of the river 

 itself, and not by some great convulsion during which the very 

 crust of the earth was rent. The narrowness of the abyss, the 

 strange zigzags along which the tumultuous waters rush after their 

 first great plunge, the mystery which has long surrounded the 

 further course of the river after it swings away out Of sight among' 

 its forbidding precipices, and the knowledge that the rocks across 

 which it plunges are of volcanic origin, are all factors that have 

 aided the illusion. Hence it is not surprising to find that the 

 explanation given by David Livingstone half a century ago, that 

 the majestic Zambesi has here been intercepted by a rent due to 

 some earth movement in the solid rocks, has been adopted without 

 question in all the later descriptions of this wonderful spectacle. 



Meanwhile, however, geologists have been able to prove that in 

 other parts of the world, canyons of even more impressive dimensions ' 

 than this canyon of the Zambesi have been carved out by the erosive' 

 agency of water acting through very long periods of time ; and this 

 view has very recently been convincingly advanced by Mr. A. J, C. 

 Molyneux, F.G.S., F.E.G.S., of Bulawayo, to explain the Victoria 

 Falls and Canyon. In Mr. Molyneux's able paper ("The Physical 

 History of the Victoria Falls," Geographical Journal for January, 

 1905), it is shown that the prevalent idea of a sudden rent in the' 



1 A paper read before the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 

 meetuig in South Africa, at Johannesburg, August 30th, 1905. Eeprinted from 

 " The Official Guide to the Victoria Falls," compiled by F. W. Sykes Conservator 

 (Bulawayo, 1905.) 



DECADE V. — VOL. II. NO. XII. 34 



