258 THE UNMAPPED AREAS ON THE EARTH'S SURFACE 



Africa by a gradual process of migration : Transplant southern 

 Europeans to north Africa ; after a generation or Wo remove their 

 progeny further south, and so on, edging the succeeding genera- 

 tion further and further into the heart of the continent. The ex- 

 periment — a long one it would be — might be tried ; but it is to 

 be feared that the ultimate result would be a race deprived of all 

 those characteristics which have made Europe what it is. 



HIDDEN ENEMIES 



An able young Italian physician, Dr Sambon, has recently 

 faced this important problem, and has not hesitated to come to 

 conclusions quite opposed to those generally accepted. His posi- 

 tion is that it has taken us centuries in Europe to discover our 

 hidden enemies, the microbes of the various diseases to which 

 northern humanity is a prey, and to meet them and conquer 

 them. In Africa we have a totally different set of enemies to 

 meet, from lions and snakes down to the invisible organisms that 

 produce those forms of malaria, anaemia, and other diseases 

 characteristic of tropical countries. He admits that these are 

 more or less due to heat, to the nature of the soil, and other trop- 

 ical conditions, but that if once we knew their precise nature and 

 modes of working we should be in a position to meet them and 

 conquer them. It may be so, but this is a result that could only 

 be reached after generations of experience and investigation, and 

 even Dr Sambon admits that the ultimate product of European 

 acclimatization in Africa would be something quite different from 

 the European progenitors. What is wanted is a series of care- 

 fully conducted experiments. 



I have referred to the Blantyre highlands. In British East 

 Africa there are plateaus of much greater altitude, and in other 

 parts of Central Africa there are large areas of 4.000 feet and over 

 above sea level. The world may become so full that we ma}'' be 

 forced to try to utilize these lofty tropical regions as homes for 

 white people when Canada and Australia and the United States 

 become over populated. As one of my predecessors in this chair 

 (Mr Ravenstein) tried to show at the Leeds meeting some years 

 ago, the population of the world will have more than doubled in 

 a century, and about 180 years hence will have quadrupled. At 

 any rate, here is a problem of prime importance for the geog- 

 rapher of the coming century to attack. With so many ener- 

 getic and intelligent white men all over Africa, it should not be 

 difficult to obtain the data which might help toward its solution. 



