256 THE UNMAPPED AREAS ON THE EARTH'S SURFACE 



is mainly the filling-in of the details. This is a process that re- 

 quires many hands and special qualifications. All over the con- 

 tinent there are regions which will repay special investigation. 

 Quite recently an English traveler, Mr Cowper, found not far from 

 the Tripoli coast miles of magnificent ruins and much to correct 

 on our maps. If only the obstructiveness of the Turkish officials 

 could be overcome, there is a rich harvest for any one who will 

 go to work with patience and intelligence. Even the interior of 

 Morocco, and especially the Atlas mountains, are but little known. 

 The French, in both Tunis and Algeria, are extending our knowl- 

 edge southward. 



EFFORTS OF THE POWERS 



All the powers who have taken part in the scramble for Africa 

 are doing much to acquire a knowledge of their territories. Ger- 

 many especially deserves praise for the persistent zeal with which 

 she has carried out the exploration of her immense territories in 

 East and West Africa. The men she sends out are unusually 

 well qualified for the work, capable not simply of making a run- 

 ning survey as they proceed and taking notes on country and 

 people, but of rendering a substantial account of the geology, 

 the fauna, the flora, and the economic conditions. Both in the 

 French and the British spheres good work is also being done, 

 and the map of Africa is being gradually filled up. But what 

 we especially want now are men of the type of Dr J. W. Gregory, 

 whose book on the Great Rift valley is one of the most valuable 

 contributions to African geography ever made. If men of this 

 stamp would settle down in regions like that of Mount Ruwen- 

 zori or. Lake Rudolf or the region about lakes Bangweolo and 

 Tanganyika, or in the Atlas or in many other regions that could 

 be named, the gains to scientific geography, as well as to the eco- 

 nomic interests of Africa, would be great. An example of work 

 of this kind is seen in the discoveries made by a young biologist 

 trained in geographical observation, Mr Moore, on Lake Tan- 

 ganyika. There he found a fauna which seems to afford a key 

 to the past history of the center of the continent, a fauna which, 

 Mr Moore maintains, is essentially of a salt-water type. Mr 

 Moore, I believe, is inclined to maintain that the ancient con- 

 nection of this part of Africa with the ocean was not by the west, 

 as Joseph Thomson surmised, but by the north, through the 

 Great Rift valley of Dr Gregory, and he strongly advocates the 

 careful examination of Lake Rudolf as the crucial test of his 



